State of Independence
by CrimsonStarbird
Summary: Zeref won the war but failed to obtain Fairy Heart. Caught between Acnologia's rampage and the increasing madness of his emperor, the least likely person to ever betray His Majesty finally reaches breaking point. August/Zeref/Mavis fic. COMPLETE.
1. The Point of No Return

_**A/N:** Hi all! This isn't the story I intended to upload next, but since the other is miles away from completion and this one really needed writing, I decided to just go ahead and do it. I became really attached to August during the final arc, and I found the (non-)resolution of his storyline very frustrating... so I did what I usually do in these situations and wrote my own version. This fic focusses on August's relationship with Zeref (and Mavis) during an alternate Alvarez arc. The timeline here diverged from canon at the start of the Alvarez invasion, leading to a short and bloody war, and the first chapter begins several months after Alvarez's victory. _

_This fic is a bit more angsty (and a lot less silly) than my normal stuff. _The pairing is Zeref/Mavis, though neither of them will narrate the story. The fact that those two along with August are the main characters probably explains why it ended up being so serious...__

 _I will update weekly, on or around Sunday nights, albeit with slightly shorter chapters than is usual for me._

 _Right, I think that's it! On to the story! ~CS_

* * *

 **State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **C **hapter One: The Point of No Return****

Someone was screaming.

The castle walls could not restrain it; the gloom could not hush it, like it did all other sounds. It rent the air like an executioner's blade, rattling the iron-studded door in its frame and whipping the torch-flames into a terrified dance. The other cells were empty now, but they had not forgotten. All around the hooded figure, chains clinked and cold winds keened as ghost and memory lent their voices to the wailing of the damned.

His cowl quivered, and he paused with his left hand not quite touching the door.

He must have heard that scream a thousand times, and yet, at the same time, he had not truly heard it until that day.

It held him there, listening because he couldn't _not_ listen, and only when it was over could he lift the heavy ring on the door one-handed and pull it open.

There had always been dungeons in Mercurius, but the torture chambers came courtesy of its current occupier. The repurposed cell was large enough to echo back the screams of its guests, its old stone newly painted with the crimson aftermath of brutality. A barred window invited the winter wind to come and lick at open wounds. The floor was strewn with devices as twisted as the minds that had first conceived them, some encrusted in blood and others still dripping. The air was thick with it – the stench of human waste, the heat of humiliation, the taste of depravity cloying like disease in his throat.

At the centre of it all, suspended from the ceiling by chains around her wrists, hung the Seventh and Ninth Master of Fairy Tail.

She had been beautiful, once. She had blazed defiant in the last few hours of the war; had overcome great personal loss to rally her troops against impossible odds. The hands now bound above her head had borne the blades that had cut down countless soldiers. Not one of the puss-filled scars that covered more of her naked body than skin had been acquired on the battlefield, when her armour and her magic had been with her. There had been a time when that fiery scarlet hair had kindled fear in the hearts of all who saw it – a time before half had been ripped from her scalp, and the other half so caked in grime that not a trace of that vital colour remained.

She had been beautiful, once.

Then the war had ended, and the debts incurred by her defiance had become due in full.

Still, she had fought. At first her pride had been amusing to her captors, and then frustrating. In the end, she had been given to two men who saw her as a puzzle – one they delighted in tackling with more and more creative solutions. He did not know their names, if men such as those even had them. Both were big, bald, tattooed, and they grinned like skulls; the first smiles he had seen in a very long time.

As he entered the dungeon, those grins turned to alarm, and then anger.

"How dare you-?"

His left hand reached out from underneath his travelling cloak and pulled back the cowl.

"Master August! We weren't expecting you-"

"Get out," he commanded.

"But His Majesty said-"

"Out!" he thundered, and they went.

August made a sharp gesture with his hand and the chains suspending his prisoner from the ceiling snapped. Moving swiftly forward, his arm wrapped around her midriff as she fell, taking most of her weight through himself. There she lay, slumped over his arm, lifeless, limp, and then-

-a circuit, connecting-

-a floodlight, triggered-

-a fuse's flame vanishing into the powder keg-

-the intent to kill exploded against his senses.

In that instant, he knew what she was going to do. First, a blow to the groin or kidney, to debilitate and shock. Then one to stun – a fist into his chin, or perhaps the back of his head, before he could recover. At last, the broken lengths of chain dangling from her wrists would tighten around his neck, crushing until the darkness took him; final punishment for the one foolish enough to break her chains.

These probabilities spun out before him, and he did nothing to prevent them.

Her index finger twitched, and then she was still.

It had simply been too long.

Muscles atrophied in captivity would not spring into action at her command. Bones, broken and badly healed, refused to take her weight. Withered fingers could not form a fist; feet were not viable weapons when she could not even stand without support.

After all this time, her will was the only part of her left unbroken.

That was the sum total of Erza Scarlet's hate and patience: a single twitch in her finger.

August let her lean on him for several silent minutes. Once her lungs had acclimatized to the change of the strain upon her body, he led her to a chair set out for the torturers' convenience. Reaching beneath his travelling cloak, he retrieved a water bottle and placed it in front of her.

She ignored it. Her eyes were so blank he might have thought her a corpse, if not for the killing intent still roiling at the edge of his senses.

Quietly, he said, "Tell me how to find Fairy Heart."

There was silence, at first, and then she laughed. The sound twisted up from her stomach and spilled like blood over cracked lips.

"One hundred and thirteen days," Erza said, and she laughed again. Each word was a dagger drawn through a parched throat, whispers cutting into raw skin; almost as painful to hear as they must have been to say. "I did wonder how long it would be."

One hundred and thirteen days since the war had ended.

One hundred and thirteen days since this dungeon had become her home.

One hundred and thirteen days of madness and agony, of hopelessness and hate, of a world spiralling down and down and down.

But she wanted him to ask, so he duly did: "How long it would be for what?"

"For you to send in the Good Cop." A warped grin split her face, blood beading at the corners of her mouth. "You must have tried every other method of getting information out of me; why not that one?"

Only when her mirth had died down did she add, thoughtfully, "Still, to think that you believe you'd still qualify as a Good Cop, after everything you've done…"

The tone of August's voice did not change in response to the raw accusation in hers. "This has gone on long enough, Erza. This death, this devastation… I only want to put an end to it."

"That's funny," she remarked. "You didn't seem to have a problem with death when you killed Jellal."

His expression darkened.

"Or Mira," she continued, unfazed by the danger. "Or Mest. Or Cana-"

"It was war!" he burst out, eyes flashing. "I will apologize for every casualty when you do the same! What do you think _happens_ when you aim a Jupiter blast directly for a man who possesses no defensive magic? I'd known Ajeel from the moment he was born!"

"It's a good job you took that into account when deciding whether or not to launch an unprovoked attack on another country, then, isn't it? Oh, wait…"

Satisfied that she had made her point, Erza leaned back in the chair, heedless to the crunch of misshapen bones. There was a light in her eyes that the flickering torch-flames could not fully explain – a light too cold and too vicious to befit a Master of Fairy Tail.

And he was the one who looked away, in the end; his gaze dropping to the floor as he whispered, "This was never supposed to happen."

"It's a hundred and thirteen days too late for you to reach that understanding. The rest of us figured out Zeref was evil a long time ago."

"You're wrong."

"Oh? There I was thinking the unprovoked invasion of my home and subsequent slaughter of my friends provided pretty damning evidence."

"That was never the plan. If you had just given His Majesty what he wanted, it would never have come to pass."

"Do you think so?"

He did not deem that lightly patronizing question worthy of a response.

Erza stretched in the silence, not seeming to care that the motion quickened the dripping of blood from her chair.

"The fields are on fire," she said, suddenly, curiously. "I can see the smoke from the window. At night, they burn in the distance, like the world is stuck before a dawn that will never come… Do you know why?"

"Acnologia," came the prompt response.

"Is that so?"

"Yes. He destroyed the villages to the north and set fire to the farmland."

"He came this far south, and yet did not approach Crocus?"

"Of course not. He fears His Majesty too much to draw near."

"Perhaps," Erza pondered. "But the fields have been burning for three days and three nights. Why has no one put out the blaze?"

"Acnologia's rampages are not merciful. I doubt there is anyone left alive to do so."

"Perhaps not from the villages, but that is valuable farmland to the capital, is it not?"

"No more valuable than the lives lost – lives which are on your hands, Erza Scarlet. You and you alone are the reason why His Majesty does not have the power to stop Acnologia's wrath."

She did not shrug – her body was too battered for even that simple gesture – but all her dispassion and more was carried in the eyes which continued to regard him without flinching, without remorse, whenever he dared to meet them.

"Tell me how to find Fairy Heart," August ordered.

"It's on Tenrou Island."

"We know that!" he snapped, before curbing his impatience with an effort. "We also know that when Makarov moved it there before the battle, he altered the wards so that the island will not appear unless the Guild Master summons it."

"The _current_ Guild Master," Erza corrected, with a smile more contorted than any grimace. "Though, you already worked that one out, didn't you? They showed me what was left of Macao once your precious emperor realized his life was worthless. That's why you've kept me alive all this time. If I die, Tenrou Island will be lost to this world forever."

"Tell me how to get to the island."

"No."

"Erza-"

"You know, you're not very good at this. Usually when they come to ask me questions, they at least have the courtesy to bring me gifts." A wave of her limp hand indicated the nest of dreadful devices around them.

"I'm not-" he started to say, and then stopped. As distasteful as he found the way she had been treated, it did not change the fact that for a hundred and thirteen days his silence had condoned it.

"You're not like them?" she finished for him. "Hypocrite."

Without warning, her voice, broken and yet unbreakable, rose in a sing-song shout. "Why are the fields still burning, August?"

"I have told you why," he stated, steady and cold. "Tell me about Tenrou Island."

"Here we go again." She gave a theatrical sigh. "Let me ask you something instead. If I summon Tenrou Island for you, if I help you obtain Fairy Heart, what will you do with it? Take it to Zeref?"

"Yes. And with it, he will finally be able to defeat Acnologia, and we will have peace at last."

She stared.

She snorted.

And then she could no longer restrain herself. Her laughter ran uncontrollably around a room that had no idea how to deal with such a sound, and so echoed it back over and over.

"You really believe that, don't you? Where have you been these past few months? Are you really so insulated here in your stolen castle that you can't hear the children crying, the parents screaming? Can't you taste the dread in the air? Smell the burning fields? Look around you, August! There is nothing left of Fiore but death and death and death – _that_ is what happens when Zeref gets his way!"

"You're wrong," August said steadily. "This isn't what anyone wants, least of all His Majesty. This is the result of your obstinance leaving him with no means of protecting his people from Acnologia!"

"His people? Zeref cares about no one but himself!"

"No. You don't understand. He has governed Alvarez for centuries. He built our country up from nothing; took us from earth and ashes to prosperity and peace."

"Peace? Don't make me laugh."

"We were peaceful for decades," he argued. "Were it not for the threat Acnologia poses to all humanity, I am sure we would have remained so. Give him what he wants – let him use Fairy Heart to destroy Acnologia once and for all. Then, you'll see. He's a good man."

"Your _good man_ killed Lucy in front of me," she told him idly. "Well, he killed many in front of me to try and make me talk, but it's Lucy I think about the most. She was so strong, you know? She didn't beg for her life. She didn't even cry, not once. With her dying breath, she told me not to give up. And do you know what I felt, when she died?"

Numbly, he shook his head.

"Hate. And not for him. For _her._ Because it's easy for her, isn't it? She's gone. She doesn't have to suffer the consequences of _staying strong_ any more – and yet she had the nerve to tell me I had to keep on doing it even as she escaped for good _._ I never thought I would see the day when I could watch a friend die without shedding a tear, but you really can become desensitized to anything, if exposed to it enough times."

August shook his head vigorously enough to set the cowl fluttering around his shoulders. "You don't know him like I do. That's not him, not really. If he acts cruel, it is only because you have left him with no choice!"

"Perhaps I could believe that, if my friends were the only ones to whom he was so cruel. But that's not true, is it? Do you think I don't know, because I'm trapped in here? Do you think I can't see it? Why has no one put out the fires in the fields, August?"

"Because…" He glanced away, and it meant nothing, because she already knew the truth. If he was still capable of looking the other way, he wouldn't be here. "They do not believe there is any point in saving the fertile land. By the time harvest comes around again, they believe they will be dead."

"Acnologia hasn't come this far south yet, has he?"

"No."

"He wasn't the one who started the fires."

"No."

"I do wonder what the entire population of those villages must have done to earn the wrath of our dear emperor… though, having seen the things he does down here just because he's bored, I would bet anything that they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"He is scared, Erza!" His shout snapped out like the whips which had carved their legacy into her body. "He is desperate! It is fear which drives him to madness! Without Fairy Heart, he can't kill Acnologia, and Acnologia can't kill him, though he'll try and try endlessly – that is the future waiting for him at the end of everything! Can you even imagine that horror?"

"Imagine it?" Erza laughed. "My guild is dead. My friends are dead. And he just won't let me die… I don't _have_ to imagine it."

August sat down heavily, as if his body was as weak as Erza's. The weight of it all hit worse than any torturer's blow. "I don't understand," he whispered. "What are you trying to achieve by defying him?"

"Achieve? Nothing. Everyone I wanted to protect is already dead."

"Then why do you keep fighting?"

"Spite," she said simply. "Not love, not hope… that is the only thing that keeps me strong. I won't let the man who did this be the only one to get a happy ending."

"For that," he murmured, "you will allow the suffering of every man, woman and child in this land to continue?"

A yawn. "That's rich, coming from you. You've turned a blind eye for months as Zeref's actions have grown worse and worse… you, and all the others who call yourselves his _friends._ "

August closed his eyes briefly, ignoring the pain that twisted in his heart as she spat the word, and when he spoke again, his voice gave no sign of it. In ninety years, it never had. "There are no others. Not any more."

"Oh? Irene's dead too, then?"

The question was posed in the half-curious tone of a collector who had long since grown bored of her hobby. Little wonder, when the collection in question was of the deaths of those she knew. By now, she must have had too many to count.

He did not know what had passed between her and Irene when they had fought, but there was no affection in Erza's voice, and the only time he had ever heard Irene speak of her had been those few short words to His Majesty a hundred and thirteen days ago, informing him that she had captured the enemy general.

Still, Irene might not have been Erza's friend, but she had been his.

"Yesterday," he confirmed softly. "She asked His Majesty for troops so that she could go and fight Acnologia in the north. He refused. So she came to me for help…"

"You turned her down." It wasn't an accusation. It didn't have to be.

"I didn't think she would disobey a direct order from His Majesty. I didn't think she'd run head-first into a fight she knew she couldn't win! I thought she'd see sense… but she told me things weren't going to change unless someone made a stand. She went to try and stop Acnologia on her own, and she died. Everyone I love is gone, now."

"So, there _is_ something we have in common," Erza remarked.

" _I_ am not the one prolonging this madness!"

"No, but you're not doing anything to stop it, either. You're not stuck in some godforsaken dungeon – you're Zeref's right-hand man! You're the only one he listens to!"

August shook his head. "He doesn't listen to me."

"Is that how you justify your cowardice?"

"That's not-"

"You haven't even tried to change anything! You kill when he tells you to kill, and look away when thousands of innocents are slaughtered by Acnologia – and by their own emperor! – because he tells you not to intervene! At least _that woman_ died doing what was right! But _you_ , you don't even have the guts to tell him when he's wrong-"

"I DID!" he roared. He was standing now, with no memory of getting to his feet, and the frightened rattling of the chair behind him was the only proof that he had ever been sitting down at all.

"I did, because Irene was right," he repeated, quieter this time.

He unclipped the cloak's fastening around his neck, and the garment fell to the floor, letting the light fall upon his _right_ arm. At first, it seemed to remain shrouded in shadows. Only when he shifted on his feet did it become clear that the entire arm was black and withered, as if all the life and the colour had been drained out of it.

At her faint expression of puzzlement – the most human expression he had seen her make – he explained, "I told him I wouldn't let this go on. And then… well, my magic is incapable of truly negating his, but it was able to slow it down enough for me to get away alive. He wasn't expecting that. He won't make the same mistake again."

He sat back down, covering his dead arm with his travelling cloak. "I won't live beyond the end of this day. Even if I run, he'll find me. He, too, has nothing left to live for but spite."

Silence held sway over a room that for so long had known nothing but the screams of the damned.

"Why did you come down here?" Erza asked. "You must be desperate if you're expecting pity from your prisoner _._ "

"No. This is the last chance we have to stop this situation from getting any worse. Help me reach Fairy Heart."

She did not answer straight away. Instead, she pawed at the bottle he had set in front of her. Perhaps her fingers were still paralyzed, or perhaps more had been broken than he'd thought, but she could not grip it. He lifted it in his one good hand and tipped it up for her to drink.

She swallowed some of the water, spat the rest out tinged with blood, and then, without a word of thanks, said, "Did Zeref tell you what he planned to do with Fairy Heart, once he obtained it?"

"Yes," he responded steadily. "He told us that it is a source of infinite magic, which will give him the power to kill Acnologia and reverse the apocalypse he brings."

"So he didn't tell you," she mused. "He told Gray, though – right before he killed him. But Gray managed to tell Natsu, and by the time he'd killed Natsu too the whole guild knew about it… what was left of us, anyway."

"What are you talking about?"

"Have you given any thought as to how magic, even an infinite source of it, is going to defeat a dragon with perfect immunity to magic?"

In all honesty, August hadn't. His Majesty was a genius of magic. If he said he had a plan to stop Acnologia, then he had a plan to stop Acnologia, simple as that _._ It wasn't their job to interrogate him for details they wouldn't understand anyway. It was their job to help his plan come to be in any way they could.

"I see that you haven't," Erza continued. "Acnologia consumes magic to become stronger. If your dear emperor throws an infinite source of magic at him, he will become infinitely powerful. But of course, Zeref knows that. That's why he isn't planning to use Fairy Heart against Acnologia at all."

August's eyes narrowed.

"He intends to use it to travel back in time," she explained. "Back to when he was a child, so that he can prevent his brother's death and avoid becoming immortal. Yes, I'm sure he'll kill Acnologia before he becomes too powerful, but it won't mean anything to you and I, because we won't exist any more. He will erase this world, and everyone who lives and has lived in it over the past four hundred years, just so that he can get his happy home life back again. Everyone you loved, everything you fought for so desperately in the war – it will all cease to be. That's what Zeref is planning."

"You lie."

This time, she did manage a shrug. Her wasted skin strained against the effort, but her voice was as composed as ever. "Ask him yourself. I doubt he'll deny it."

"An obvious bluff," he snapped. "You know I can't call it, because if I go back he'll kill me before I get the chance."

"That's your problem."

"It isn't a problem. You are mistaken. No matter how bad things get, His Majesty would never erase the world where he met-" There was a flash of violence in how sharply he shook his head, as he pushed those thoughts away and focussed on the matter at hand. "No, that has never been his aim. He started building Alvarez long before Fairy Heart came into being – before Fairy Tail even existed. He wouldn't undo all that."

She shrugged again. "I don't know why I expected anything other than denial from you. It took him actively trying to kill you for you to see that he's evil, after all."

"He is not evil! You don't understand- You don't know him!"

He never would have thought a little, patronizing smile from a battered and broken prisoner could have been so hurtful.

Once again, he bit back his frustration with an effort. This argument would get him nowhere. He couldn't tell her what he knew – what he'd never been able to tell anyone – and without it, she would never be able to understand his certainty. So he pushed it all away and slammed the mental doors, as he had learnt to do from a very young age, and changed tack with a strategist's experience. His Majesty had taught him that, too.

Out loud, he wondered, "Is that belief why you would rather let the world end than yield Fairy Heart to His Majesty?"

"A world where Fairy Tail is gone, or a world where it never existed… it's all the same to me. Therefore, I will pick the one which causes Zeref the most pain."

"And what of those who continue to die each day that he suffers?"

Another shrug. "They would cease to exist either way."

"Perhaps," he said. "But others would live."

It was her turn to say nothing.

"This world is ending, Erza, but if we take Fairy Heart to him, we can ensure there will be another! Whether you are right, or whether I am right, life will go on. If you are right, the world will be born anew, never having to live in the shadow of the apocalypse. If I am right, with Acnologia gone, this ruined world will heal as His Majesty does. Either way, there will be life, there will be love again!"

His voice cracked on those last two words, and he finished in a whisper. "Please, Erza. For the sake of those who still have a chance of happiness in this damned world… take me to Fairy Heart."

And this time, she said, "Very well."


	2. The Point of Return

_**A/N:** Thanks to everyone who has reviewed or is following this story so far! ~CS_

* * *

 **State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Two: The Point of Return**

August had suspected that they wouldn't get far. He may have been a familiar sight around Mercurius since the occupation had begun, but this time he travelled in the company of a figure shifty enough to cast doubt onto the emperor's unofficial second-in-command. Besides, it was only a matter of time before someone noticed that the hell beneath the palace had fallen silent.

Erza was wrapped in his travelling cloak, with its oversized hood concealing her most distinctive feature. She could not stand unaided, let alone walk. She leaned heavily on his good arm as they hobbled across the courtyard. He did not begrudge her the support, after what she had been through, although he could not shake the feeling of danger that came from the only combat-ready arm they had between them being compromised.

He had never thought the day would come when he would feel vulnerable walking through his own emperor's palace.

In the end, it wasn't because of Erza that they were stopped, but because of him.

There were three guards at the gate. Once, there would have been six or eight – and yet the absences did not strike him as odd. Some long-buried part of him, now slowly being unearthed by the sandstorm whipped up by Erza's unflinching words, had noticed the gradual reduction of the conquering administration to a skeleton staff. He had simply refused to acknowledge it all this time.

The smart had fled long ago, he realized. And the unlucky-

There was no value in finishing that thought, so he did not.

The guards noticed his approach without immediately opening the gate for him. That was the first indication that something was wrong. The second came in the form of a hushed conversation, which led to one guard dashing back across the courtyard, and the other two affixing grim looks to their faces.

Erza was quick to pick up on it, yet the caustic remark he was expecting never came. Instead, he could feel her leaning up against the archway as they came to a halt, so that he could move freely if necessary.

"Open the gates," August commanded.

"State your business," returned the guard.

"So, I'm not allowed to leave the palace now, except on business?" he challenged. "I do not have time for this. I ride to the coast at His Majesty's behest."

They exchanged glances. "That is not what we were told."

"You dare to interfere with my duty?"

He stepped into their moment of indecision and let his magic flare out. Without even taking physical form, his aura was strong enough to crack the ground and send the shadows scurrying for safety. Surely no one was foolish enough to try and stop him by force. It had been decades since anyone from the Alvarez forces had challenged him to more than a friendly training battle, and even those had ceased when Ajeel had died…

But he saw the despair that unfurled its sweeping wings and cast them into shade-

- _they would die either way_ -

-and he knew that they had been ordered not to let him leave, and he knew who the messenger had run to inform, and he knew it was already too late.

They attacked. An open-jawed shark of water surged towards him, accompanied by a pulse of diamond light. He knew he had to fight back, but he _couldn't_. Even when the hostile magic disintegrated against his own overwhelming presence, he could still do nothing but watch, a spectator in his own fight, because his own soldiers were turning their magic upon him and it was far too _wrong_ to be anything but an illusion-

Something jagged scraped across his senses.

He turned, expecting another threat, and saw Erza standing with her right arm out before her. All the willpower she had left was focussed upon her outstretched hand. Sparks skittered around her palm. They seemed to reflect the light more than emit it, and as they skipped and gleamed metallic, each flash of sunlight seemed to scream a warning.

This time, he called his magic for real, and a moment later both the guards lay unconscious at his feet. Turning, he seized Erza's hand in his own. Magic pulsed gently, calming the sparks and easing the strained air.

"Don't," he warned her. "Your magic has been bound for too long. You need to let it heal first."

The eyes he glimpsed between the cowl blazed with hate, although her efforts to use magic ceased.

"Now what?" she asked. There was a jarring lightness in her tone, as if she found the failure of their escape attempt amusing instead of problematic. "Even if you break the gate down, we won't get far."

She was right. While he could outpace any pursuers on his own, it would be impossible with Erza in tow, and that defeated the point.

"We'll borrow His Majesty's ship from the hangar and escape by air."

"Steal, you mean," she interpreted for him, as he resumed guiding her across the grounds. "Why wasn't that Plan A? It seems much more practical."

"I did not want to fight my own men."

She snorted in derision.

He ignored it, and they staggered on.

* * *

Under its previous ruler, Mercurius had been a residence first and a place of governance second. It had not been intended as a military stronghold even before the vast differences in technology between the defenders and conquerors was taken into account – not that that had stopped Emperor Spriggan from transforming it into one the moment he had taken over.

Nowhere reflected that bastardization of purpose better than the hangar in the palace gardens. Once a shed vast enough to house the astonishing array of vehicles and tools necessary to maintain Mercurius's world-famous gardens, it had been crudely expanded with corrugated iron and huge smoke-spitting generators to provide a home for the emperor's personal airship. It was supposed to be temporary – a symbol of the nation's adaptability, to be replaced by a permanent construction as soon as possible. That was yet another hope which had fled with the arrival of Acnologia.

They made it across the gardens unchallenged, but as August had feared, there were guards in the hangar itself, and they _knew._ Word had travelled faster than he and Erza had, and that word was _traitor,_ hurled like brutal spears towards him and branded in the righteous defiance of the magic raised against him.

This time, there was far less hesitation in how he let his magic unfurl. There was no point pretending he had a choice.

He set Erza down by the airship and ran to meet the guards' challenge. It didn't matter that his dominant arm hung uselessly by his side; it didn't matter that the lingering death upon it was barely being held back from taking over the rest of his body. He was still faster, still stronger, than anyone left in this fragmented empire.

The crackle of unstable magic zapped again across his mind.

Raw energy fizzed around Erza's outstretched hand. Sparks dipped in and out of her skin, dyeing themselves blood-red and leaving angry burns in their wake.

"Stop that at once!" August commanded.

This only made her try harder, and, with a flash of crimson-stained light, a sword materialized in front of her.

Triumphant, she snatched it out of the air – but her fingers would not grip, and the heel of her hand smacked awkwardly into the hilt. It spun away and hit the floor, where it bounced once and winked out of existence. She bent double, gasping for breath.

She was still shaking from the exertion when he knocked away the last of the soldiers and could focus fully on her. "That is enough, Erza. There is no need for you to fight, so cease trying to use magic. You are only going to cause yourself harm."

In return for this advice, she offered him another warped smile; a promise that if she wanted to use her magic, he didn't have a hope of stopping her.

Shaking his head, he powered up the ship and helped her pull herself on board. It was only as the engines began to rumble and their escape became imminent that the implications of her broken magic finally hit him.

"Erza," he began, slowly, and then with growing fear. "You don't have the strength left to summon Tenrou Island, do you?"

A mirthless smile. "I can do it."

"But your magic-"

"If I were you, I would be more worried about how we're going to take off with a solid roof in the way."

Setting his unease aside, he permitted the change of subject. "It isn't as solid as it should be. We're going to break straight through it. I will shield from the top deck; you stay here in the bridge. The auto take-off sequence should suffice."

He finished inputting the commands and stepped back from the control panel, exhaling in relief as the engines thundered their acceptance. He had never much cared for flying into battle, and indeed he had left his own personal airship in Alvarez when the army had departed. He would always prefer to place his life in the hands of his own magic than a vehicle which could fail or crash or be shot down by enemies at the worst possible moment – a perfectly sensible reaction which Ajeel insisted was yet more proof that he was becoming a grumpy old man.

It had been Ajeel who had taught him to fly in the end, after the young mage decided that there couldn't be a member of His Majesty's personal guard who was incapable of wielding the empire's proudest weapon. Even so, August would likely have declined if Ajeel hadn't seemed so happy to be finally paying him back for all those years spent training him in magic.

If Ajeel had known, back then, that August would one day use that knowledge to steal the emperor's airship and flee from a horde of his own soldiers…

But Ajeel was dead now, and surely he would understand that this was necessary.

The ship began to rise from the ground. The imperial airships had been designed to look like ordinary seafaring vessels, except smaller, flatter, and sleeker. Huge magic-consuming engines took the place of masts and sails. Out on the deck, the sheer fury of those engines reflected from the hangar walls as a wave of force, battering him with turbulence as he fought his way to the centre. A glance over his shoulder revealed that Erza was still safe within the upper bridge, and then he raised his good arm in a command for his magic to take shape. Raw power from inside him, heat and motion thrumming in the air around him – he pulled both into a half-dome of shimmering energy enclosing the ship.

It wasn't a moment too soon. The airship accelerated directly upwards, his shield punching through the makeshift roof like it would a cloud layer, and then they were out in the open.

Up they rose, away from the city which had never felt like home in a hundred and thirteen days of occupation; a city whose inhabitants, conquerors and conquered alike, would receive him as an enemy upon his return.

Below him lay the unconscious forms of his own soldiers, his own men, who would no doubt come to curse his mercy by the time His Majesty learnt of their failure to stop him.

Still further below lay the coffins of all those he had loved – those whose legacy his current actions besmirched, yet who might have lived if he had only acted sooner.

And on the highest balcony of Mercurius, robes billowing in a black wind, watching as his most valuable prisoner escaped on board a ship stolen by the last surviving member of the Spriggan Twelve… there stood the man for whom he would do anything.

There was nothing in those eyes but sheer, black hate.

Something broke in August, then.

He collapsed against the railings, his shoulders heaving, his pleas whipped away by the wind. "No! It's not like that! I'm not betraying you, I'm _not!_ "

The ship lurched, and then dropped several metres. Only his grip on the railings stopped him from tumbling over. As the vessel caught itself, thrusters whining their confusion at the contradictory commands, he shouted towards the bridge, "Erza, stop trying to-"

A bolt of midnight-black energy shot through the sky above them.

Horrified, he turned back to the figure on the balcony. His hand was raised. Devastating magic swirled around him like a pack of trained wolves, growling its eagerness for a second strike. Some part of August knew he should be sprinting to the bridge to take back control of the ship from Erza, but his feet might as well have been nailed to the deck – pinned there, perhaps, by shards of his broken heart.

The ship dropped again to avoid another strike, but not quickly enough. Only the shield still in place from the take-off saved them. It absorbed what it could before shattering, and the bolt glanced along the hull, knocking them to the side with a lash of thunder.

Cursing exploded from inside the bridge as Erza abandoned trying to learn the controls, and instead turned everything with a dial or lever up as high as it would go. The airship blasted forwards. Edges of white wind trailed behind them as it gathered speed far too quickly.

And as they shot away from the palace, August leaned over the railings and screamed, "I'm coming back! I will bring Fairy Heart to you! Things will go back to how they were, so wait for me, please! I'm not leaving you! _I'm not!"_

The wind took his words, his desperation; scattered them amongst the ashes of the slipstream.

Without the strength to stand, he hung over the railing, offering one last lonely promise to a man who wouldn't listen even if he could.

"I swear I'll come back to you, Father."

* * *

"Left a little," Erza instructed.

August complied, easing the airship around until she gave a grunt of satisfaction.

How she knew where they were, he had no idea. His eyes, the ship's radar, and the most sophisticated maps the empire possessed all agreed that this patch of ocean was exactly the same as every other patch of ocean they had flown over, with no islands – magical or otherwise – in sight. If there truly was magic tying her to Tenrou Island, he could not sense it, and there was very little magic that he was unable to perceive.

As if that wasn't unnerving enough, she also wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to their journey. The co-pilot's seat was fully reclined, so that she could lie on it with her eyes closed. One hand rested across the worst of the wounds on her stomach, as if trying to stem the slow oozing of blood through tenderness alone. He had offered to bandage it for her – well, he had offered to try _,_ since he knew little of healing – and she had laughed at him. He had not offered again.

Whether she believed him or not, he was genuinely concerned about her condition. She was his only chance to make things right again. If she died before they reached their destination – or if she lacked the strength to summon Tenrou Island for him once there – this world was condemned.

Time was not their ally. The lazy blip-blip-blip of the ships the emperor had sent after them barely brushed the edge of the radar's range right now, but both they and their pursuers were covering ground at an exceptional rate. If they stopped, they would be caught. It was as simple as that. They would only have one chance at getting through the island's defences.

Every time he asked if she had the magical power for it, he received the same response – _I can do it;_ a quiet certainty hiding an undertone of dark amusement – so he had stopped asking.

He had not, however, stopped worrying about it.

If she would not or could not undo the wards protecting Fairy Heart…

If he had thrown away _everything_ for an enemy's lie…

He did not know what he would do.

"Start slowing down," Erza said suddenly. Her breathing was inaudibly faint, yet her voice was strong enough to give him a little hope. "We're almost there."

This was it, then.

Swallowing his hesitation, he pulled back on the controls and guided the airship down from its maximum speed. Already he could hear the radar's bleeps coming more frequently as their pursuers began to gain ground. His hand trembled on the lever.

"Keep going," she said. "And… stop."

The airship slid into a perfect hover, high above the waves – waves which looked exactly the same as all the other waves they had seen. Regular blue-white rolls wrinkled the carpet of ocean in every direction. Tenrou Island was nowhere to be seen.

"We're here," Erza announced.

Some of his despair must have slipped through his mask, because her eyes opened a crack and a flicker of that predatory smile twisted her lips once more.

But all she said was, "Let's go."

She tried to stand, and failed. Moving forward numbly, he helped her up once more, noticing the way her fingers tensed around his arm where before they had only been limp. If her strength was returning so quickly, then perhaps…

They shuffled out onto the deck of the airship. Still August could sense nothing. "What now?"

She did not answer his question, but posed one of her own. "Do you still intend to take Fairy Heart to Zeref?"

"I do."

"That's twice he's tried to kill you, now," she remarked. "He tried to shoot us down in front of everyone."

"He is hurt," came the steady response. "He is acting out of fear, and nothing more. Once Fairy Heart is in his possession, things will go back to how they were."

"Once Fairy Heart is in his possession, you will cease to exist."

"The kind of time travel magic you fear so much is impossible," he asserted.

"Perhaps for us mere mortals," she said grimly, letting the implication hang in the air between them.

August shook his head softly. "You are wrong. You believe in Fairy Tail, and it's no different for me. I have faith in His Majesty."

"I lost my faith in Fairy Tail a long time ago," Erza said. "Being on the losing side of a war like this will do that to you. I wonder what it will take for the same to happen to you."

He did not dignify that with a response. Leaving her to lean up against the door, he strode to the railings, scouring the sea with all his senses for anything that the empire's rigorous searches had missed.

There was nothing but ordinary ocean. Was she mocking him? If she had lured him to the middle of nowhere just as a cruel punishment…

"Erza," he called, doing everything he could to keep the fear out of his voice. "Drop the barriers around the island. _Now_."

At once, magic scraped along his senses.

It was _wrong._

This wasn't the smooth, flowing beauty of the magic belonging to Fairy Tail. It was razor-sharp and vivid, shattered and crudely reassembled with twice as many edges as before. It was the magic she had tried and failed to use twice already that day… and he hadn't realized what she wanted it _for_ until it was too late.

Too late to stop the sword from materializing before her.

Too late to stop her from seizing it, treachery and wicked triumph flashing in her eyes.

Too late to stop her from driving it through her own chest.

"NO!" he shrieked.

Too late.

She fell backwards. The sword disappeared, and in its place a cascade of blood described an elegant arc.

Another shriek tore from his lips. He fell to his knees by her side, warm blood pouring over his hand as he tried to stem the flow from a wound that had been immediately fatal.

"You can't do this to me!" he howled. "You were supposed to take me to Fairy Heart! You can't just _die!_ "

That small smile was frozen for all eternity upon her lips.

"Is that all this was? One huge lie? All those we were supposed to save – did you see their futures as nothing but a chance to end your own life? _Answer me, Erza!_ "

She did not. She would never answer anyone again.

He became aware of a growing pressure behind his eyes, and it was several seconds more before he could recognize the sensation of tears squeezing their way to freedom; tears born not of grief but of sheer desperation, and the uselessness of life. He tried to wipe them away, and only succeeded in smearing blood across his cheek. He couldn't even remember the last time he had been taken over by such a worthless impulse. He had left such childish notions behind ninety years ago, when he had entered the emperor's service… or perhaps there had been no need for them, in the home he had found at his side.

But he'd lost that home now, hadn't he? He'd gambled it all on a sliver of hope that had proven no more than a lie.

"What am I supposed to do?" he whispered. "This was all I had, Erza… I can't go back, and now I can't go forward either."

The ocean breeze, salty with the weight of the tears it bore, murmured curiously around him.

"I can't go home," he told it, and it was almost a plea. "I have to get to Tenrou Island…"

There was a blinding pulse of magic, and then darkness.

* * *

But it wasn't total darkness.

It was a rippling darkness, painting Erza's lifeless form in ever-shifting patterns of light and shade, like the waltz of sunlight through the branches of- _branches?_

August looked up.

Before, there had been only an uncompromising blue sky. Now, an enormous canopy of green and gold soared even higher than the hovering airship: the branches of the Great Tenrou Tree.

He ran to the railings so quickly his head spun with disorientation. Above him was the tree's canopy. Below him, land. All around, the ocean still stretched out to every horizon, but it was no longer an undisturbed plane – it had a point of beginning, and that point was the cluster of beaches and forests, of rocks and roots, of history and secrets and magic called Tenrou Island.

"It's here," he breathed. The wind whipping around him had an entirely different texture to the sea breeze – it smelt of rich soil and a thousand different types of life. "The wards must have fallen. How…?"

His gaze flickered across to Erza's body. "So, when we calculated that the island would be lost forever if the last Master of Fairy Tail died… were we wrong? And you played along with it just to spite us?"

The bitterness in his laugh would have done her proud. "All this time, all we had to do to obtain Fairy Heart was end your life… _all this time…_ "

Then he gave his head a vigorous shake. He could lament the time lost once Fairy Heart was in his possession. The island was unguarded now – and once the imperial ships arrived, he doubted they would give him a chance to explain himself before attempting to finish carrying out the sentence His Majesty had begun.

That in mind, he brought the airship down to land as quickly as he dared.

It wasn't quickly enough. He had barely powered down the engines when their familiar roar reached his ears again, this time not from his own vessel but the ones rapidly approaching. He jumped from the ship's deck and sprinted for the cover of the trees… as the airship shot by without slowing.

Then another passed overhead. And another. Not a single blast of magic broke the island's shell of serenity. A fourth vessel passed by, moving in a slow search pattern, and he frowned. It was worrisome indeed if the only pilots still loyal to His Majesty were ones incapable of telling when there was a giant island right under their noses…

"They can't see the island," he breathed.

Closing his eyes, he pushed away his less-trustworthy senses and focussed entirely on the sense of magic. The ethereal dome enclosing the island shimmered into being at once – after all, it wasn't supposed to be undetectable from _this_ side. That disproved his earlier theory: the wards were very much intact, even after Erza's death.

So how had he been able to pass through them?

"What did you do, Erza?" he whispered.

No answer was forthcoming – not from the gentle rustle of the Tenrou Tree's crown, nor from the silent body of the Seventh and Ninth Master.

A thought occurred to him then, and – with time no longer so crucial – he returned to the deck of the ship to retrieve Erza's body. He wasn't easy, with only one working arm, but it wouldn't have been right to leave her there. He carried her into the forest until he found a small clearing. Although far from ideal, it was still a more appropriate resting place than the belly of a stolen ship. He hoped she had found a better world than this.

That done, he stepped back, swallowing a calming breath as another imperial ship soared blindly by, and he felt for the magic once more.

It came to him so easily. It was a trail of silk-spun gold; a single sunbeam illuminating a path through the shadow-tangled forest. It wasn't merely _warm_ – it was nostalgic, comforting; a promise to hold him close and keep him safe, no matter how long the night. It was his mother's magic, and it knew him even though she never would. It called to him. _She_ called to him.

Even though he had never been to the island before, he knew, somehow, where he was being led. Through the forest, overgrown yet beautiful; through the cave system below… and into a crystal-lit cavern. At its centre stood the marker for a single grave.

The memorial had been symbolic when first placed here, for the body of their First Master had been Fairy Tail's greatest secret, sealed in crystal and hidden beneath the guildhall. Now it was quite literal. Her crystal coffin had been moved here the night before the invasion, and here it had been hidden ever since.

And Mavis was there: far too young to have left this world, far too peaceful to give any sign of the tragedy that had killed her. She was closer to him than she had ever been, and only now could he comprehend how far away she truly was.

He had not thought he could have had any tears left to shed that day, but he was wrong.

* * *

"I have to take you back to him," he said, when he could speak again. "You understand why, don't you?"

The echo of his voice returned to him, alone. He did not know why he had been expecting anything more. Mavis Vermillion was nearly a hundred years dead. She had already left this world when he entered it, and all that remained was an accidental convergence of magical forces that happened to have their focal point within her preserved body. The living, feeling, thinking human being had gone, and the crystal tomb before him was nothing more than a magical artefact.

Even so, he could not help but think of her as a person any more than he could help missing the mother he'd never met.

He managed a single step before stopping. Endless magic flowed around him, warming his skin and filling his lungs with light. It was so familiar, and yet so unlike anything he had felt before.

Erza's warning flashed through his mind. _Have you given any thought as to how magic, even an infinite source of it, is going to defeat a dragon with perfect immunity to magic?_

His Majesty had a plan to beat Acnologia, he was sure of it – and it didn't involve reckless, destructive, _impossible_ time travel. Erza's lack of faith in a man she had met under the worst of circumstances was hardly compelling evidence. His Majesty was the greatest mage alive. Undoubtedly, there were hundreds of ways he could use an infinite power source to destroy Acnologia without having to reset the world through four hundred years.

 _Once Fairy Heart is in his possession, you will cease to exist._

"You are wrong," he said softly. "You don't know him like I do. Once he has this power, and Acnologia is dead, things will go back to how they should be."

And then, looking directly into Mavis's eternally closed eyes, he whispered, "There is nothing to fear, I promise."

His mind was made up; his resolve scarred but unbroken.

All that remained was to get the oversized crystal back to his airship, and from there to his emperor.

Which might be easier said than done. His first thought was to try and drag it, in case it was lighter than it looked – only to find that his hand passed straight through the crystal.

It had the oddest texture, like dry water at the exact temperature of his body; he could detect it only as drag when his hand moved. There were no ripples upon its surface, although he was sure he could feel it flowing over his skin. His sleeve bunched up at the air-crystal interface – to it, the crystal was perfectly solid – yet it accepted his body with ease.

After all, wasn't he only alive at all because the genius who had first sealed Mavis's body in the crystal had later altered it so that he could pass through?

He withdrew his hand again, feeling as though the tears might return at any second. He rubbed at his eyes, frustrated with his own emotions, and it seemed like the warm glow of magic was settling around his shoulders in a calming embrace.

When he looked again, he saw that the glow had a very real source. A little ball of light, the same gentle gold as the magic that had drawn him here, hovered just over her heart in the crystal. It brightened with every pulse, and he knew with sudden certainty that it was beating in time with his heart.

"I don't understand," he whispered.

It shone brighter still.

"What do you want from me?"

Another flutter; a pulse of gentle light that touched everything he was.

"I have to take you to him," he insisted. "The world would have no need to fear if he could just go back to the way he was before the war… before everything went wrong…"

His hand, the only one in the world that could, phased through the crystal and touched the glowing heart.

That light was everything, and then nothing.

The next time he opened his eyes, Tenrou Island was gone.


	3. Trauma

_**A/N:** Thanks again to those of you following this story, especially the guest reviewers I can't reply to in person! ~CS_

* * *

 **State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Three: Trauma**

 _Thwump._

The book tumbled from slack fingers, turned a lazy half-flip in the air, and slumped across the floorboards spine-up.

August stared at it. Those precious arcane secrets, scrawled in blood and preserved for three hundred years within a binding of beaten dragonhide, lay in a heap before him, and he made no move to retrieve it.

Something didn't feel right.

There was nothing out of place. Furniture kept immaculate by some invisible hand, floorboards polished until they shone, the necessary overabundance of gilt he had noticed on the first day and become inured to shortly after – all was right for a guest room in the imperial palace. Even the well-worn armchair, which nestled around him so snugly it might have been trying to absorb him, felt right for a chair he had been using for thirty-something years, ever since he had abandoned the protests of formality and made these palace quarters his full-time residence in all but name.

No, there was nothing out of place… except perhaps the book sprawled upon the floor.

But it was an odd sense of disorientation it produced – as if all his life he had been returning finished books to the bookshelf, and only now was he discovering that they belonged splayed upon the floor like this.

He reached for it, and paused. For some reason, he'd felt as though that wasn't going to work… but of course it did, and he lifted the book comfortably in his right hand. He smoothed out the creased pages and rested it in his lap.

He knew this old tome well. It was one of many recovered when a military expedition had stumbled upon the ruins of an extinct tribe in the mid-western deserts. The relics had been presented, as was the law, to His Majesty… who, in separating the artefacts between those he would keep for his own collection and those which would be donated to museums and laboratories, had decided to set this one aside for August in defiance of protocol.

It hadn't been a _gift,_ as such. It had been a gesture of pragmatism as much as generosity – a wordless faith that August would be able to translate it and put the knowledge contained within to good use.

But he had cherished it anyway, because that was what one did when one received an invaluable book from one's emperor.

And it was only natural that he would feel sentimental about having to leave it behind.

Although… he hadn't left it anywhere, had he? It was here and he was here, where they both belonged, even though he couldn't quite recall selecting it from the shelf, or sitting down to read it… or anything so precise, in fact, from before it had slipped through his fingers.

The knock at the door came so suddenly that the book almost returned to the floor.

"What is it?" he called. Even though he had intended to be loud, the strength of his own voice startled him.

"Master August! He's back!" The unfamiliar voice was filled with all the excitement that a solemn knock on the door of an important official had been unable to convey.

"Who's back?"

"His Majesty, of course! You asked me to inform you when he returned to the palace… didn't you?"

"Oh. Right. Thank you."

Now that he thought about it, he could vaguely recall making that request of a servant, even if he couldn't quite remember _when_ he had done so.

And that, he realized, summed up his unease perfectly. He was in the right place, but he did not remember how he had got here, what he had come here to do, or what he had been doing before…

Still, there was no doubt in his mind as to what he should do _next._ His place was at His Majesty's side. That had been a certainty in his life for ninety years. If His Majesty had returned to the palace after one of his customary absences, then he, August, should be there to greet him.

He stood, returned the old book fondly to its place on the shelf, and went to find his emperor.

* * *

Despite that resolution, August found his unease growing with every step.

This was his home. The proof was everywhere he looked – from the feet which knew their way to the Hall of Audience without conscious thought, to the occasional magic-sealed door opening for him as he passed through a restricted area – and those little, tangible reassurances jarred with the great white-winged spectre of _not-belonging_ , which tugged at his shadow and was gone before he turned around.

Servants stepped aside for him, inclining their heads respectfully as he passed. None of them showed a trace of the fear he did not realize he had been expecting until the moment had come and gone. The air rang with the jubilation that always accompanied His Majesty's infrequent returns, yet it was somehow unable to reach him. The cheers of the distant crowds and the bustling of eager officials seemed to form a shell of noise around him, enclosing the void within.

His Majesty was back, and the palace was alive with it, but not quite as alive as it should have been.

It would not have been much of an exaggeration to claim that August lived for those all-too-rare periods His Majesty spent in Vistarion.

Granted, there was always much more to do in the emperor's absence. It would have been unfair to claim that the administration of the Alvarez Empire fell to August alone, for the duties were split not merely between the twelve members of His Majesty's personal guard, but also entrusted to the army of ministers, advisors, lawyers, secretaries, speech-writers and treasurers who gallantly manned the battlements against the onslaught of bureaucracy that came with governing an empire.

For August, though, it had never been about maintaining the internal machinery of the Alvarez Empire. He had been with His Majesty longer than anyone; had come to Alakitasia with him when the 'Alvarez Empire' had been little more than a discordant collection of self-governing city-states, and the so-called 'Emperor Spriggan' was considered a hubristic upstart, when he was spoken about at all. There were few alive who remembered the time before the Alvarez mainland had been one proud country. Fewer still had had a direct role in His Majesty's campaign to unite the territories, or had travelled the length and breadth of the continent to quell rebellions at his personal request.

This was a country that he and His Majesty had built together, and he wanted to protect it.

He did not care about the intricacies of this new tax or the precise process by which that law's amendment would be passed. That was for Invel to worry about. No, for August, the most important thing was ensuring that the empire remained loyal in its emperor's absence and true to his vision for it, so that His Majesty could come home at any time and resume his work. This country was the physical embodiment of his relationship with his emperor, and he would protect it until his last breath.

Perhaps some small part of him hoped that, by so doing, His Majesty might be encouraged to return more frequently to the country he had built.

The time August spent by his father's side meant more to him than anything. It didn't matter that His Majesty did not know – would never know – that he had a son. That was something he had long ago accepted was for the best.

Yet His Majesty trusted him. His Majesty depended on him. His Majesty had given him a purpose, and through that purpose, had bestowed value upon his wretched life – and that had always been enough. For a boy who should never have been born to be able to stand by his father's side… just being here was more than a miracle.

News of His Majesty's return, therefore, never failed to lift his spirits.

Not until today.

Today, there might have been a knot of iron tying them down, pulling tighter and tighter with every step he took. There should have been happiness and hope in his heart, and instead there was fear.

Fear, as if facing his beloved emperor – his beloved father – was something that took courage.

As if he had done something awful, something which deserved these black chains of guilt.

As if everything, _everything,_ in this immaculate home of his was wrong.

Every step felt like one he'd taken before. He must have walked this way a thousand times, true enough, but never with this sense of inevitability, as if he walked not through a limitless world but a crevice growing narrower by the second.

It was that same dreadful certainty that told him, a moment before he entered the Hall of Audience, that he would find not only His Majesty within, but also Ajeel and Dimaria and Invel, and that Yajeel would turn up with Makarov any moment now. He hadn't seen them. He just somehow _knew._

He stepped across the threshold and into the exact scene he had predicted. He wasn't surprised that Ajeel and Dimaria were so thrilled to see their leader return; not surprised that Invel would hide his own delight beneath rigid decorum, stern enough that even August could be amused by it.

And of course it wasn't surprising, because he knew all these people well. They were the closest thing he had to a family in spirit, if not in blood. It was right for each of them to act this way.

At the same time, everything was horribly, horribly wrong, and looking round this perfect scene, he finally understood why.

All these people were dead.

Ajeel, so excited about the upcoming battle that he was bouncing on the balls of his feet even in the presence of His Majesty – he had been its first casualty; had raced on ahead in spite of the warnings and been shot out of the sky before anyone could reach him.

Dead.

Dimaria, looking undefeatable, radiating well-earned confidence as she stood with her head held high – the same head that had been ripped from her body by END and tossed back into their camp. They'd never found the rest of her.

Dead.

Invel, as immaculate as always – who had thought nothing of wearing his shirt and tie into battle, not knowing that it would end up being the only way they could identify his body after being beaten to death by a monster he had not been able to control.

Dead.

All of them.

And yet their ghosts were here, laughing as they had in life, as hopeful about the future as they had been _before,_ and it was wrong _wrong WRONG-_

"Ah, you join us at last," Invel announced, turning to offer August a-

 _-face so swollen it no longer resembled anything human-_

 _-empty sockets pouring forth blood instead of tears-_

-a familiar smile.

Pain spasmed through his heart. It was not merely a figurative pain, but literal, agonizing cramps, propagating further through his muscles with every heartbeat.

"Yo, old man!" Ajeel called, waving his arm above his head in greeting. He had never been able to contain his own energy, that one, from the moment he was born. "Never thought I'd see the day when we'd beat you down here to greet His Majesty! Did your afternoon nap overrun, or something?"

It was too hard to stand. Agony branched through his nervous system like slow-motion lightning.

"August? Are you well?" This question came from Dimaria, tempestuous Dimaria, who passion had always made her capable of great hate and greater love-

 _-three times he had requested leave to take the fallen back to Alvarez, and three times he had been denied, until at last he had given up and buried her in foreign soil, and gone to lay flowers every week because her family had been too far away to do so…_

He couldn't breathe. His lungs were still working, in and out, but the oxygen would not diffuse into his bloodstream no matter how much he gasped.

Sharp pains tingled up his side. Dimly, he became aware that Ajeel had slipped under his arm, helping to hold him up, although the contact only encouraged the pain to spread. "What's up, old man? You're not having a stroke or something, are you? Can you smell bacon? It is bacon, isn't it? For a stroke? Or was it toast?"

Leaning heavily on the young man's shoulders-

- _hurling aside black-burnt twists of metal, the burning at his fingers nothing compared to the hope that he had somehow survived_ _; not realizing at first that the scorched shape he had just pushed away wasn't a piece of airship wreckage after all-_

-tanned and strong-

 _-charred beyond recognition-_

-he tried to speak-

 _-screaming-_

-and-

 _-screaming-_

-couldn't.

Because the one he had been trying not to think about all this time, the one he had always loved and only recently come to fear, was turning towards him, and those black eyes-

 _-sheer, black hate-_

-creased with concern as they fell upon him.

And he spoke-

 _-traitor-_

 _-just like everyone else-_

 _-you should go ahead and die-_

"August?" Zeref asked. "Are you alright?"

It was too much for his mortal self to bear, and the next heartbeat took him into darkness.

* * *

When he came to, he remembered everything.

Tenrou Island. Erza: broken, defiant, finally at peace. Coming face-to-face with his mother in her crystal tomb for the very first time…

They were all things that had not yet happened.

He had gone back in time. Or, perhaps it was more accurate to say that he had been _sent_ back in time. He hadn't chosen it, and he certainly couldn't have done it himself. If not for how complete his memories of the future were, he would have maintained even now that true time travel was impossible.

But Fairy Heart had done it. No – _his mother_ had done it. It couldn't have been an accident. Not with when it had happened, nor the day to which he had returned; the day before the Alvarez Empire's invasion of Ishgar.

The day that everything had gone wrong.

The day that he had lost his friends, his future, and – though it would take him another hundred and thirteen days to realize it – his father.

There was no time to waste. Through some providential convergence of wish and magic, he had been granted a chance to avoid the hell that awaited the world. He needed to get to work at once – to deduce the outcome he wanted from this war and use his future knowledge to plan how they might obtain it, with his friends saved and Acnologia destroyed once and for all.

And yet he continued to lie there, his eyes closed, as one dreadful thought echoed over and over in his mind.

Fairy Heart had sent him back in time.

Fairy Heart made time travel possible.

Erza had been right. His Majesty had lied to them.

There were, as always, a hundred arguments leaping to His Majesty's defence. Just because it was _possible_ didn't mean it was what His Majesty was planning – or even that he knew about it. After all, His Majesty had never given any indication that he believed true time travel to be possible… or that he would throw away the empire he had spent centuries building if it was.

August knew all this. The evidence against His Majesty was circumstantial at best. But Erza's words had travelled with him, into this world where he and she had yet to meet.

 _It's a hundred and thirteen days too late for you to realize that Zeref is evil._

She was wrong in substance, but not, perhaps, in sentiment.

It had taken him far too long to act because he had refused to accept that things in a country his beloved emperor ruled could be as awful as they appeared. Yes, His Majesty had been desperate, and he had been scared, and by the end the wisdom and experience that had tempered those twin demons for centuries had crumbled under the pressure – but if August had acknowledged that earlier, rather than letting his loyalty overrule his better judgement, perhaps the downwards spiral could have been cut off before it had truly begun…

He wanted to trust His Majesty.

He really, truly did.

But the broken Erza of a broken world had killed herself right in front of him, and he saw it every time he tried to dismiss her doubts out of hand.

What did His Majesty have planned for Fairy Heart? For the empire? For the world?

"August?" a soft voice inquired.

His heart jolted. The collapse of his dissociation had not fully banished the fear from his heart. Even though he knew his dread was merely a shadow of a future that had not yet come to be, the kindness in his father's voice – a kindness he had longed for all this time without ever consciously realizing it had vanished – only stirred it into greater confusion.

He heard the rustle of old parchment biting down on a bookmark, and then another question. "You're awake, are you not?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The direct question demanded an answer, and he gave one immediately, as ninety years of habit demanded that he did. His eyes opened a crack, allowing the daylight to bring him the familiar colours of the palace quarters that had unofficially become his. He lay in his bed fully-clothed, and beside him, in an armchair pulled up close to the bedside…

"How are you feeling?" Zeref inquired.

Shock temporarily overrode everything else – shock that of all the colleagues who could have been keeping an eye on him, he found himself waking to the one who should have cared the least for the health of a mere vassal.

"What are you doing here?" he burst out. Although hoarse from his time on the wrong side of consciousness, his voice was still stronger than it had been a hundred days from now.

"It's my palace," came the amused response. "I go where I like."

August took a deep breath and forced his skipping heart to calm. "Surely you have more important things to do than-"

"Than ensuring my most powerful mage is well on the day before our invasion of Ishgar? No, as it happens, I don't," Zeref informed him dryly. "If you aren't fit to fight tomorrow, I'm the first person who needs to know. I shall have to rework a great deal of my invasion strategy at very short notice if I cannot rely on you."

August stared stubbornly at the twists of gold hanging from the chandelier. He could not bring himself to look His Majesty in the eye – not when he was acting so unlike a proper emperor; not when he was being so unreasonably doting.

"You can rely on me. I am perfectly well."

He could not see the other's raised eyebrows, but he could hear the gesture plainly enough in his voice. "None of the palace doctors could tell me why you collapsed. Perhaps you can enlighten me."

"I… I'm not entirely sure what happened."

It wasn't truly a lie. He suspected that the sensations of his future self had overwhelmed his present self, but that was mere speculation. Time travel of the kind he had undergone hadn't been studied by virtue of it being theoretically impossible.

Still, even if he had known for sure, there was a part of him that didn't want to tell His Majesty what had happened. Not yet. Not until he had decided what to do about the future only he remembered, and right now he was still lodged somewhere in a mire of confusion, weighed down by Erza's warning.

"Perhaps it was delayed exhaustion, from this morning's training," he prevaricated. "It is nothing to worry about, and I sincerely apologize for any disturbance I may have caused."

"I find it hard to believe that it is nothing." There was a terseness to his emperor's words, as if he already had a theory but was hoping that August would bring it up himself, so that he would not have to. "This has never happened before."

"And it won't again. I can guarantee it."

"I would far rather you be pragmatic than ambitious," Zeref warned him. "You are not young. It would be foolish for us both to pretend that this isn't going to happen at some point-"

"I am not even _close_ to my limit!" August snapped without thinking. "The Wizard Saint Warrod is far older than I, and he is counted amongst Ishgar's strongest mages!"

This was followed by a brief silence, as his brain processed the fact that he had just shouted at his emperor – that he had let his pride and his shame annihilate the kindness he had been shown. The vacuum of sound rapidly filled with a guilt so thick he thought he might drown in it-

"You will have to forgive me," Zeref said shortly. "I do not know what it is like to grow old."

"There is nothing to forgive," came the heartfelt response. "You are already far more considerate of me than you ought to be."

"It is true that great magic is a powerful force for life," Zeref reflected. "It is likely that your natural lifespan will exceed that of any other human alive."

It wasn't the first time His Majesty had told him so, although it was the first time that that simple observation upon the nature of magic had hidden an oblique concern.

Or perhaps not so oblique, as he continued, "Still, it is a fickle thing, magic so closely entangled with life. You are important to the empire. Better that you retire and live to continue sharing your council than rely too much on magic and risk it consuming you."

As much as August rejected the conclusion, he couldn't help be touched by the sentiment. "I appreciate your consideration, and I understand your concern. Please, rest assured that I am a long way short of my limit. I will inform you the minute I become unable to carry out your will."

After a moment, the other nodded. "I believe you. If you say that you are able to fight, then you are able to fight." Adopting a more business-like tone, he added, "I am going to brief the others on the invasion in half an hour. You are not expected to be there. I will have Invel fill you in later."

"I will be there."

"I would tell you not to push yourself too hard, but you have already made it clear that I would be wasting my breath," Zeref frowned. "Instead, I will say this – if you insist on pushing yourself to the limit of your being when you are old enough to know better, I would rather you did so on the battlefield tomorrow than because you cannot stand to miss an eminently miss-able briefing. I doubt anything will come up that you and I have not already discussed in private."

August smiled at that, a gesture that felt both strange and wonderful to lips moulded in a terrible future. "Regardless, I will be there."

"Suit yourself."

With a rustle of soft fabric, his sovereign stood, and then paused. For a moment, he seemed to struggle with the concepts in his mind.

"Just so we're on the same page," he said, at last, "I have no issue with rethinking my invasion strategy; I would simply prefer to know about it sooner rather than later. I see no problem with postponing the invasion, if you need the time to recover. Makarov escaped while you were unconscious, so they already know we're coming. We lose nothing by waiting another two or three days, but we gain a great deal by having you with us."

"I…" The words could not squeeze around the lump in his throat. He swallowed, with effort, and whispered, "That won't be necessary, Your Majesty. I will be ready to leave tonight."

"Very well."

A hand rested briefly upon his shoulder – warm, reassuring, gentle – and then, like a whirl of purposeful energy, Zeref was gone and he was alone.

Once again, he felt the stirring of stupid, childish tears beneath closed eyelids.

He remembered, as vividly as if he were still in the moment, the vast and incomprehensible horror of seeing that black death turned consciously upon him-

-and he touched the place where his emperor's hand – his father's hand – had rested so briefly upon his shoulder, and he wondered how he could have been so caught up in Erza's twisted viewpoint that he had forgotten just how considerate His Majesty could be.

He really was a good man.

No, not just that – he was a good man despite the curse's best attempts to stop him from being so. He spoke of August's value with respect to the empire because it was not safe for him to consider it in any other way, and it meant something entirely different coming from him than from someone like Invel. He had created this empire from nothing; he was looked up to by so many; he was surrounded by those who loved him. He was an incomparable leader and a remarkable man, and whatever his fears, whatever his personal despair, he put it all aside when he was here, for the sake of his empire.

If Erza labelled him as evil, it was only because she had never seen him be kind.

And yet, she had known Fairy Heart would make time travel possible. Either it had been a very lucky guess, or someone knowledgeable enough about magic to have worked it out – _someone like His Majesty_ – had told her so.

August was haunted by an anguish that no one else could understand. He felt trapped between the future so cruel it had stripped away all memories of his father's kindness, and the present that had returned them to him in a twist that implied betrayal. He thought about the man he had always loved more than anything; the wise, unpredictable, kind, cruel, and contradictory man who had tried to kill him, who had expressed genuine concern for him… and he didn't know what to do.

He had lived the worst of all possible futures. He was the only one with the power to prevent it from happening again. With his knowledge of the future, he could surely win a decisive victory for His Majesty in the coming war-

 _-once Fairy Heart is in his possession, you will cease to exist-_

-but he didn't know if that was what he wanted.

* * *

Because he had no better ideas, August went to the briefing.

It was the second time he had attended the meeting; the second time he had sat with his fellow members of the Spriggan Twelve – or the half who weren't running errands elsewhere, at any rate – and listened as His Majesty told them about Fairy Heart and the objective of the invasion.

Very little was different the second time round. The concerned glances he periodically received from the others provided the most noticeable change. Most of them seemed to have reached the same conclusion as His Majesty – that after ninety years at his emperor's side, age had finally come to collect its debt. Ajeel even left his designated seat to take up Irene's empty one beside him, ready to support his colleague and mentor if he collapsed again. He glared a silent challenge at anyone he thought might object to this breach of protocol, although no one did, not even Invel. No doubt Ajeel thought his motive a lot more subtle than it was.

August might have been old, but he was far from infirm; the tremendous amount of magic pulsing through his veins saw to that. But he'd let them believe what they wanted, if it would stop them from asking questions he couldn't answer.

Perhaps he should have been angry that they doubted his ability to serve – angry like he had been with His Majesty, before catching himself – but he was not.

It was harder than he'd imagined to be angry with someone he had buried.

The first time, he had shared His Majesty's indulgent patience towards Ajeel's overexcitement for the coming battle. Now that he knew what war would bring this brash young man – too young to have known anything but peace – he felt a sorrow so deep he thought it might consume him.

Back then, he, too, had thought their army unstoppable.

He had encouraged this. He had let these people die – these mages who looked up to him as the leader of the Twelve; these fellow children of the empire.

He would not let that happen a second time… but just as before, that resolution brought with it a great unease. How could he save them? If His Majesty could not obtain Fairy Heart, what would be the _point_ in saving them?

And if Erza was right, what would be the point even if His Majesty _did_ obtain Fairy Heart?

His Majesty was the one who always knew what to do. August's job was to take his will and make it real. It was upon his father's shoulders that the fate of the world had always been meant to rest… not his own.

* * *

"August, stay behind," Zeref ordered, as soon as the meeting was over.

Fear sparked and was quickly quenched; the future which kindled it had not yet happened. August stood as the others filed from the chamber, deflecting the curious looks sent his way with the stony mask of the leader.

Once they were alone in the room, he inquired, "What can I do for you, Your Majesty?"

There was a sigh. Zeref's shoulders slumped; the emperor's mantle, so difficult for a man of his apparent physical age to maintain in public, was allowed to slip a little. "You tell me you are fine, and then you spend most of the briefing spacing out. What am I to make of that, August?"

"I can only apologize-"

"What is bothering you?"

It was in part a concerned question, but it was also a command from an absolute ruler to his subject, and it would not tolerate silence.

And he blurted out, without consciously deciding to, "How do you intend to stop Acnologia with Fairy Heart?"

Zeref stilled.

The _first_ time he had attended this meeting, August would have thought nothing of it, but he had seen that look so many times in the future he had left, and he had never known it to precede anything but fear and rage… and death.

The last time he had felt such danger, he had been running for his life point-five seconds later.

And yet, now that he was here, he couldn't make himself stop. "Because a source of magic, even an infinite one, is surely of no use against a being who consumes all magic. The only thing I can come up with is to somehow use it to travel back in time to before he became the Dragon of Magic, and kill him then…"

Unnaturally still, unnaturally quiet. Danger unfurled its intangible wings.

"But that would require travelling back over four hundred years," he concluded hesitantly. "There is no way the present can remain stable against such a change. You may be old enough to survive it, Your Majesty, but…"

And he did manage to cut himself off before saying, _but if Erza was right and you prevent yourself from becoming immortal while you're there, then the empire will never come into being, nor Fairy Tail, and you will never meet Mavis, and then I…_

By that point, though, he thought it didn't matter what he did and didn't say. It was enough.

His gaze locked with his emperor's, and he knew that he had, in all likelihood, spoken his last words-

 _-sheer, black hate-_

 _-you should go ahead and die-_

-and Zeref sighed, turning away to lean on the windowsill. The breeze played with his hair, like it did for emperors and children alike.

"In truth, I have considered that option," he admitted heavily. "Would a world where Acnologia never existed truly be better for me? Fear of him has driven me to do great things… terrible things, too. I do not think there is an easy answer to that."

He turned and he smiled, and his eyes were warmer than such a deep black had any right to be. "But I _do_ know that I have invested far too much in the present world to risk it like that. No, I believe there is another way to stop Acnologia. With the magic of Fairy Heart, it should be possible to delete his presence from the world's future. Because the magic will never touch the present Acnologia, he will not get the chance to consume it, and he will be as vulnerable to it as any other creature. It is untested, but I believe the theory is sound."

Another faint smile. "I did not want to tell the others because pure temporal energy is incredibly dangerous, even to an immortal. I had hoped to keep them from worrying unnecessarily. Still, it seems that my decision has had the opposite effect, hasn't it?"

"Please, forgive me, Your Majesty-" he stammered, but the other dismissed his clumsy apology with a wave of his hand.

"It does not matter, although I would ask you not to spread this knowledge around unless necessary. Does that satisfy your concerns, August?"

"Of course, Your Majesty."

Because it did, in far more ways than one.

Erza had been wrong. _Erza had been wrong!_

Of course there had been a perfectly good explanation for everything His Majesty was doing.

Of course he would not sacrifice the country they had built together.

Of course he would never have harmed August just for questioning him, because the emperor he knew was kind and just, and the man who had tried to kill him twice was a hundred and thirteen hate-filled days away – days which would now never happen.

Just like that, August knew exactly what he had to do.

He knew how to save His Majesty, his friends, and the whole world while he was at it.

Tonight, Fairy Tail would move Fairy Heart from the sanctuary beneath the guild to its invulnerable prison on Tenrou Island, unwittingly setting the entire world on the path to destruction. All he had to do was take it before then. He knew where it was hidden, he knew they wouldn't be expecting anyone before the invading force reached their shores tomorrow, and he knew his mother's magic would call to him, as it had last time. He could sneak in before the main army arrived, recover the crystal, and take it straight to His Majesty.

He was going to end the war before it could begin.


	4. The Tenth Master

**State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Four: The Tenth Master**

Silence reigned over Magnolia.

It was a different kind of silence to that which had dominated the last time August had visited. He had come here shortly after the war had ended, ostensibly to join the search for Fairy Heart. In retrospect, though, he thought he had been driven by a morbid curiosity to see what remained of the town where the final battle had been fought.

And in a word: nothing.

It wasn't just that the buildings had fallen and the inhabitants fled, for the destruction of residences and guildhall alike had never slowed down Fairy Tail's hometown before. But Magnolia had never had the Black Mage as its enemy before either, and by the time the last of those who dared to raise a hand against him were dead or imprisoned, nothing remained alive within a five-mile radius of the former guildhall – neither man nor beast; not the oldest tree nor the smallest beetle. That radiant black death had claimed it all.

A void had been created in the world – the first, so it would transpire, of many – and it was filled with the most absolute of silences; one that would never again know life. August was not the only one who had left that place as soon as His Majesty had permitted it.

This silence was different. It spoke of level-headed preparedness and an evacuation that had every intention of being temporary. Each distant footstep echoed between the shells of buildings, which proudly stood guard until their owners could return and make them whole once more. The town seemed to crackle with restless anticipation; the murmurs of ghosts who did not yet know they were dead.

If all went to plan, they would never have to find out this time around.

Extending his senses, August picked up the scattered magical presences of the few people still in the city – Fairy Tail mages, all of them, if they were sticking to the same strategy as last time. Some were at home, others comforted their friends, and still more wandered the streets, unable to sleep beneath the shadow of war. They wouldn't be expecting an attack until the empire's main fleet arrived early tomorrow morning.

He had no intention of disrupting that uneasy peace. He wasn't here to fight.

He had never seen the Fairy Tail guildhall intact before, and he stood for a moment to admire the imposing silver shape it cut in the moonlight. This was his mother's legacy. Oh, the bricks and mortar had been torn down and replaced at least ten times over since she had called it home, but the fact that they had never stopped rebuilding it was a testament to the success of her vision. It had taken the worst of all possible futures to break the spirit their First Master had fostered, and a hundred and thirteen days of it at that.

There was a part of him that wondered if he would have ended up here himself, had he not happened across his father all those years ago.

It was an odd thought, for a man who had personally taken the lives of many Fairy Tail mages in the future-that-wouldn't-be, but it came to him anyway, along with a strange sense of relief that there would be no war this time around. The thought of fighting them a second time – Mavis's guild, Erza's guild – twisted uncomfortably in his stomach.

Voices from inside the guildhall reached his ears, but only two or three, and the building wasn't guarded. He found a side door and pushed it open a crack, checking that the coast was clear, and then entered the empty antechamber without disturbing the peace. He chose every step with great care. All the while, he kept his magical senses alert for any trace of the power he had felt on Tenrou Island. There was nothing yet, but that didn't matter. The wards would be hiding it. He already knew he had to go down.

So down he went – beneath the guildhall, beneath sight and sound, and there, at the base of the spiral staircase-

Oh.

Really, he should have known.

There was a reason why His Majesty had not simply waltzed into the guildhall to retrieve Fairy Heart while the only people who knew of its existence were trapped on Tenrou Island, and that reason was the enormous golden seal presently blocking his way forwards.

It was quite possibly the most complicated piece of magic he had ever seen in his life. It jeered at his resolve; made a mockery of magic designed to neutralize and counter. For every layer his magic could negate, another ten would be generated in its place, and that was assuming that the half of the runes whose languages he _couldn't_ identify did nothing at all. All protective wards could be unwoven, and this one was no different, but it would take weeks – months – _years_ for him to break it on his own.

His Majesty had known that. That was why he needed an army: to claim the land within which it was buried, and to defend it for him, so that he could break the seal at his leisure.

Fairy Heart couldn't just be _taken._

"No…" The word started as a whisper and rose to a tortured shriek, as desperation unfamiliar to the throat of his present self announced its presence. "No! You can't do this to me! I'm trying to _help_ you! It will be better for everyone if this war doesn't happen – your people and mine!"

An arc of light jumped from his hand and skittered harmlessly along the seal. Frantic now, he kicked it, and the ethereal web of magic was harder beneath his foot than the walls on either side. The jarring pain laughed at the uselessness of his ambition.

"This can't be the end," he snarled, slamming his fist into the circle of unrelenting light. "Let me in, damn you!"

And it did.

Light flared, and he jerked back, startled. Before his widening eyes, the strands of magic came undone, peeling away in patterns no mortal could understand… and one by one they disappeared into the air, leaving behind a pair of grand doors that swung inwards of their own accord.

The last of the protective magic fluttered its delicate wings against his senses, and then was gone. The way was open.

After a moment so stunned it seemed to last a whole hour, the obvious explanation presented itself to August, and he whirled around, staff raised – but Makarov wasn't stood behind him. No one was. Nor, on second inspection, was anyone on the _other_ side of the sealed doors, waiting to come out.

He was alone, and yet the doors had opened.

It occurred to him that, several months from now, Tenrou Island had done the same thing, and he couldn't help but wonder if his first theory had been wrong, and Erza's death _hadn't_ been the sole reason for its fortuitous appearance…

But it had already ceased to be a pressing concern, because the defences were down now, and he could feel the magic of Fairy Heart.

It called to him once more. The resonance felt even stronger this time, for the magic that had sent him back in time had left its faint imprint upon his own. He followed it not because he was lost, but because he was sure in his purpose, and he knew he had always been meant to take this path. Erza's doubts meant nothing; the warped world which had begotten them would never come to be.

A single bridge of stone spanned the cavernous void beneath the guildhall, connecting the platform on which he stood to the giant pedestal in the centre of the chamber, the final resting place of Mavis Vermillion. This was it. This was the solution to the hell he had seen in the future-

Something pressed against his back.

He barely had time to register the cold kiss of steel between his fourth and fifth ribs before an arm locked tight around his neck, pinning him against the blade.

"Don't move," his attacker commanded. "I don't care how strong your magic is. If this goes into your heart, nothing can save you."

It took him longer than it should have done to place that voice. It had been less than twelve hours since he'd last heard it – though they had been particularly convoluted hours – but at the same time, it was almost unrecognizably different.

It was _strong._ Imposing. There was fear in it, yes, for only a fool would face down a mage like him without fear. But the tremor was barely audible, buttressed by enough layers of defiance and courage to assure him that it would not factor into her actions.

This was the Seventh – and not Ninth, not yet – Master of Fairy Tail at the height of her power; the warrior who had turned a one-sided slaughter into a vicious deadlock which only His Majesty's entry onto the battlefield had been able to break.

There had never been any doubt in her. Her conviction, twisted though it may have been by the pressure, had been the only thing still unbroken in that world when they'd fled the palace together. Not only _could_ she kill him right now, but she _would,_ if she deemed it necessary to protect her guild.

"Erza…" The word slipped almost wondrously from his lips.

"You're not the only one who's done their research, _August,_ " she spat back, offended by the assumption of familiarity. "The Master told us all about you – though he failed to mention Zeref employed a _thief_ for his right-hand man. To think that he would send you here under cover of darkness before any open declaration of war has been made… I cannot believe I expected anything more from such a despicable man as he."

The blade dug a little deeper, separating cloth like water and drawing out a single bead of blood to dye it. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't run you through right now."

Closing his eyes, August considered his options. Somewhere in between the shock of the seal opening and feeling his mother's magic again, he really had let his guard down. Erza was right: there was very little he could do. At the first sign of resistance, she'd kill him, and since her chosen weapon was a physical blade rather than magic, he had no way of protecting himself. The irony of being the first casualty of a war he was trying to prevent was not lost on him.

"Erza, wait."

A voice as pure and golden as the first chime of a bell.

The magic saturating the chamber seemed to resonate with it, flooding the void with warmth. Light gathered by the crystal tomb. It shone brighter and brighter, a physical manifestation of that graceful melody, until it had taken on an identifiable form: hair the colour of an endless summer field undulating in a ghostly wind; a fragile body frozen far too early in time; bare-footed and free-spirited; a perfect replica of the girl laid to rest in crystal.

Her stark emerald eyes were set with the resolution of war, and when she addressed Erza again, her voice bore a command that belied her fey-like appearance. "Only Masters of Fairy Tail should be able to open that door. If he knows how to circumvent the guild's protective magic, it's possible that Zeref does too. While you've got him on the back foot, try and find out how…"

The apparition's instructions tailed off… which might have been because the incredibly dangerous enemy Erza had captured had just burst into tears.

"You're alive…" August choked.

Mavis took a step backwards. "You can see me?"

" _Alive,_ " he repeated. He raised his arm, and Erza's grip immediately tightened, but he did not seem to notice as he wiped away the tears with the heel of his hand. "You're right here. You're _talking_ to me."

This earned him a completely baffled look. "Have we met?"

He shook his head, unable to speak.

"Then what… why…?" Mavis shot Erza a look that plainly said, _help me._

The blade pressed even deeper into his skin – or so he assumed, for the waves of emotion rolling over him drowned all physical sensations. Mavis was here. She was looking at him; speaking to him; reacting to him. The mother who had left their world before he had entered it, whose embrace he had never known, whose voice he had long ago accepted he would never be able to hear… she was right here.

Everything he had seen. Everything he had been through. The despair that had shaken his faith, and the hateful legacy of trauma he carried with him…

If it had all been for this-

-this impossible moment-

-this undeserved miracle-

-it was, all of it, worth enduring a hundred times over.

"What is your relationship with the First Master?" Erza demanded.

Numbly, he shook his head again, for there was no answer that could have encompassed the magnitude of his feeling in that moment. The threat of Erza's blade had vanished somewhere in the hurricane of sorrow and longing.

"Tell me how you are able to see her!" she persisted.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"How did you break the seal on the door?"

"I didn't. It opened on its own."

"Tell the truth!"

"I am!" he insisted, his tearful gaze still fixed unblinkingly upon Mavis, who gulped.

"I'm, uh…" she sniffed. "I'll just go and, uh, check the wards…"

Her feet made no sound upon the stone as she hurried out of the cavern.

"I don't know what your game is," Erza hissed as soon as she was gone, and there was venom in the breath that burned the back of his neck. "But if you've come here to hurt the First Master…"

"I would never do that! I don't understand; I thought she was dead!"

Had His Majesty lied to them? Or… was he unaware that the woman he loved still watched over her guild from the prison beneath it, no less brilliant or sympathetic for her lack of a physical presence?

"Erza?" Mavis called.

Not removing the knife from its killing position, the mage in question wrenched her captive round so that they could see the First Master poking her head around the door. Fortunately, whatever she had found there had distracted her from the peculiar situation. An honest perplexity was drawn across her features.

Mavis continued, "How many Masters of Fairy Tail have there been?"

"Eight," came the prompt response. "Although three of them are Makarov."

"And you're sure that no one has been nominating Masters as a joke again?"

"Not to my knowledge. Why?"

"Because the wards aren't broken," Mavis frowned. "They're functioning normally. And according to the logs, the last person to unseal them was the Tenth Master of Fairy Tail."

"Tenth…?" Erza blinked. "But there isn't a tenth."

"That's what I thought."

August was frowning too, because even in the future he had come from, there had only been nine. And there _couldn't_ have been a tenth, because Erza, Seventh and Ninth Master and the last surviving member of Fairy Tail, had died without naming a successor…

Or had she?

His eyes widened as everything fell into place. No, she hadn't given up at all. She had entrusted her hope, and her guild, to him.

"That's what she did," he murmured out loud. "She knew she didn't have the strength to summon Tenrou Island herself. So she made me the next Master, right before she died, and it appeared not because of her death, but because I called to it…"

" _Who_ made you Master?" Erza demanded.

"You did," he said simply.

"Me?" Erza took the confession as an open insult. "I do not recall doing something so absurd. When did I supposedly make one of Zeref's followers the Master of Fairy Tail?"

"About a hundred and thirteen days from now."

"From… now?"

"You're from the future?" Mavis asked – perhaps catching on faster, or perhaps simply more willing to entertain impossible scenarios, given that she was one herself. "I suppose that would explain how you know me when I don't know you, and how you knew where and when to come looking for Fairy Heart…"

"But not how he got in here _,_ " Erza pointed out darkly. "Even if I did, in the future, decide to make this thief and enemy my successor, that hasn't happened _yet_. And it never _will_ happen," she added, using the pressure of the blade to convey the point physically as well as through the sharp lash of her words. "So how could the wards know to call him the Tenth Master? It must be a trick. Misdirection."

"Maybe," Mavis mused, pressing her thumb to her chin in a childish thinking gesture. "But it would explain how he can see and hear me without the guild mark. Besides, it's not as though we have to tell the wards every time a new Master is named; they just _know._ It's possible that inheriting the title of Master grants a person what they need to pass through the wards, rather than the wards having to constantly adapt to new users… after all, Precht _was_ a genius. If that's the case, it's entirely possible that he could have brought the key back to this time, if given it in the future."

"But he's not even a member of Fairy Tail!"

"Hmm… now that you mention it, I'm not sure there _is_ a rule which specifies that the new Master has to be a member of the guild…"

Erza gaped at her. "Why would you leave out something so important?"

"I thought it went without saying!" Mavis pouted. " _I'm_ not the one who went and named a complete outsider as my heir, am I?"

At Erza's glare, she hastily diverted the conversation back to their intruder. "But that's beside the point. Time travel. How, and why?"

August glanced away. "I do not quite know how to answer that. You sent me back. I don't know how, or why."

" _I_ did?" Mavis squeaked.

"Fairy Heart did. But if you were there, I couldn't see you, and you didn't speak to me."

"If I didn't know you would be able to hear me, I wouldn't have bothered trying, I think," she postulated. "But… you're our enemy, so why would I…?"

He shook his head again. He had no answer to give her.

Slowly, the glowing girl walked forwards. Her feet shimmered where they met the floor; gravity, he suspected, was optional for her, the way she was now. Her physical body may have been encased in crystal, but this projection of her – this ghost who spoke, who remembered, who argued, who pouted – was so very real. She gazed solemnly up at him, and it was all he could do to hold back the tears once more. He saw those startling green eyes every day in the mirror; an almost perfect reflection of his own.

"You can let him go, Erza," Mavis decided.

Far from relaxing, he felt Erza's strong arm tense around his neck. Her concern was understandable – she had the upper hand right now, but if she let it go, she would never get it back. In a fair fight, she was no match for him.

"This man is a danger to our guild," Erza said bluntly. "He broke in here. He's Zeref's soldier. Are you honestly telling me that you trust him?"

"I don't know."

Mavis had not broken eye contact with him, not even to blink. He imagined her running through the possibilities with the efficiency of a master strategist, weighing up rapid-fire game theory calculations against optimization strategies…

And then, just as suddenly, the mental image vanished. He knew, without knowing _how_ he knew it, that this wasn't about calculated risk for her. She was listening to her heart, just as he was.

That was the moment when he realized he bore Fairy Tail no animosity at all. It was his mother's guild, in a way he had never truly understood until today. She hadn't merely founded it – she was a living part of it, watching over it as a guardian spirit whose love had not faded in a hundred years. It was also, paradoxically, _his_ guild. In another world, another Erza had entrusted it to him, and even though that would never be accepted by the members of _this_ Fairy Tail, it meant more to him than words could say. This guild was every bit as precious as his place at his father's side.

Any hatred he might have harboured towards these people for opposing His Majesty had died a very long time ago. He wanted to protect his mother's guild as much as he did his own friends. The war could not be allowed to happen.

Mavis was saying, "All I know is that the true title of Guild Master cannot be passed down under duress, and yet he has it. If you truly did give our guild's legacy to him, Erza, you did it of your own free will."

The blade twitched against his skin, and she asked, "Did my future self trust you?"

"I think it was desperation, more than trust," he confessed. "But I swear that I do not mean you any harm."

After an agonizing moment, she stepped away. The blade vanished back into thin air, useless now that it was not positioned for a swift killing blow. They locked gazes briefly. There was no hiding the suspicion in her eyes. The image of a future Erza running a sword through her own chest flashed across his mind, and he was the first to look away.

Softly, Mavis asked, "Why are you here?"

"I know that you plan on relocating Fairy Heart to Tenrou Island later tonight, ahead of our army's arrival," he replied without hesitation. He did not need to see the glances they exchanged to know that he was right. "I imagine that is where Makarov is right now, strengthening the wards to the point of invulnerability."

"So you came to steal it before we could," Erza accused.

He took a deep breath and let it out again, but he was merely delaying; some part of him had known he was going to tell them everything from the moment Mavis had appeared.

"In the future I came from," he began, "we did not realize Fairy Heart had been moved until it was too late. The war was short and bloody. I lost almost all my friends, and you almost all your guild. We won, but our victory meant nothing. With no dragons left to kill, Acnologia went on a rampage, and without the power of Fairy Heart, His Majesty could not stop him. We did everything we could to find it. The last remaining members of your guild were hunted down, and then killed when they could not give us what we needed. And Erza…"

She raised her chin defiantly, ready to face anything he had to say.

"He tortured you for a hundred and thirteen days," he said. "You didn't give in. Everyone you knew was dead, the world was falling apart around you, and you still chose to stand between His Majesty and his goal… you protected Fairy Heart until the very end."

"Then how did you come to have it?"

"We both agreed that things couldn't go on, the way they were. The world could still be healed, but only if Acnologia was defeated. You agreed to take me to Fairy Heart, and we escaped from the palace together. I intended to bring it to His Majesty, so that he could stop Acnologia at last, but instead… I found myself back here."

With a shuddering breath, he continued, "The war was atrocious. There is no other word for it. I have fought in wars before, to unify my country, and they were nothing like this. I do not want to see anyone else die – from your side or from mine. I thought that if I could bring Fairy Heart to him before the invasion begins, there would be no war."

Erza shifted restlessly from foot to foot. "After everything Zeref has done – after he tried to murder Master Makarov! – he just agreed that the war was unnecessary? I find that hard to believe."

August glanced away. "He does not know I am here."

"You didn't tell him?" Mavis murmured, wrinkling her brow in confusion. "You came back from the future, and you didn't tell your own emperor about it?"

He said nothing.

Erza let out a bark of laughter. "Then we have no reason to believe Zeref will abandon the invasion!"

"We have coexisted in peace with Fairy Tail for decades," August argued. "With the kingdom of Fiore, even longer than that. There's no reason why that wouldn't continue once the sole objective of his invasion is achieved!"

"Zeref hates Fairy Tail! He doesn't _need_ a reason!"

"That isn't true."

To their surprise, it was Mavis who spoke. Her hands were clasped together; she could barely bring herself to look above the ground. "There was a time when he was very fond of this guild. If he has since come to hate it, it will only be because of me…"

"He doesn't know that you're alive," August said impulsively, stepping forwards. "If he did…"

All the words that could possibly have described how he felt upon meeting her were inadequate, painfully so, as if even attempting to convey it in that form would constitute a capital offence. He knew that would only go double for his father.

Instead, he shook his head, and said, "Please. Come and talk to him."

"You can't." Erza cut across him, her voice like the blade she could not draw. "First Master, it's far too dangerous. You can't trust this man – and you certainly can't trust Zeref!"

"I know," Mavis conceded. "But, still… I would like to speak to him. Will you take me to him?"

"Yes. And I will protect you the best I can," August added. "You have my word."

Mavis nodded once. His word, however, seemed far from enough to satisfy Erza. "You'd be giving Zeref exactly what he wants!"

"And if he wants to use my power to stop Acnologia, would that be so bad?" Mavis countered.

" _If!_ " she echoed scornfully. "Who knows what he might do when given access to infinite magic? What if he turns it on us, and fights the same brutal war but without a single casualty to his side?" She turned to jab her finger at August. "You can't guarantee that he won't!"

"You're right; I can't. Instead, I will say only this," August responded. "His Majesty is immortal. Last time, no one – not Natsu, not your Wizard Saints, not even Acnologia – was capable of killing him. If all he wanted in this world was to slaughter your guild, having or not having Fairy Heart wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. But that's not what he wants. He is a good man. I know he is."

Erza laughed.

Mavis did not.

Erza said, "First Master, you _can't_ -"

"You've always been protecting me," Mavis interrupted gently. "You, and all the members of Fairy Tail… now, and deep into the darkest future." Her gaze flicked to August, and back again. "I am so proud of you all, and so blessed to have seen what my guild has become. This time, let me be the one to protect you."

In that moment, as she stood straight and tall, her emerald eyes blazing with insurmountable conviction, she shone with far more than mere magic.

"Please," she said to him. "Take me to Zeref."


	5. Across This Life

**State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Five: Across This Life**

Mavis thought she knew how to release her body from its crystal tomb.

For August, the hardest part wasn't convincing Erza that doing so was a good idea. Although she made no secret of her disapproval of Mavis's desire to speak to Zeref, she held her tongue. It was the First Master's decision to make, not hers, and she respected that.

Neither was the hardest part overcoming August's own misgivings about Mavis's theory. Certainly, he didn't know enough about the magic Precht had wrought upon her body to feel confident that the method she proposed would work. If something went wrong, it would destroy her ability to project her illusory form, if not erase her entire existence… and then he would lose his ability to communicate with her, only minutes after it was gained. He didn't know what he would do if he lost her again. That would be too cruel.

But her mind was made up, and, like Erza, he could only trust her to choose her own path. He watched as she paced soundlessly back and forth along the stone span, understanding about one in three of the words she muttered to herself – probabilities and precise magical formulae, these, for this time she was making a purely rational decision.

No, the hardest part of it all, for him, was discovering that Cana would play an integral part in freeing her.

Meeting the present versions of Mavis and Erza hadn't been too difficult for him – the former because that one-sided reunion had been every bit as wondrous as it had been heart-rending, and the latter because the Erza he had so briefly known in the future had been as different as could be from the one who had held him at knife-point. This Erza was strong of heart and steadfast in her faith. If she harboured any trace of the despair that had ruptured her future self, it was bound by chains of certainty and sealed deep within a vault of love for her guild.

But, Cana…

The Cana of this present was just like the Cana he had met in the future-that-wouldn't-be.

Just like the Cana he had killed.

Still she carried herself with that same loud self-confidence, swinging a bag of tarot cards in one hand and half-concealing a yawn with the other; still she dressed in a way he considered inappropriate – which Ajeel would have put down to him being a grumpy old man, if he'd still been capable of making disrespectful comments to his elders by the time August had met her on the battlefield – and she couldn't care less what strangers thought of her; still she grumbled good-naturedly about her lousy excuse for a father… and if her complaint this time concerned the inability of her cards to divine his location on the eve of war, rather than his overly protective nature in the middle of battle, what did it matter? Her relationship with her father was the same now as it had been back then.

How he'd hated it.

How outspoken their love had been! How mutual; how unashamed! How proud they had been of each other, and how devoted, even in an age of hatred and death! Of all the opponents he could have faced, those two had the one thing that he, by the very nature of his existence, could never have… and they had flaunted it in front of him as they'd fought.

He'd done the only thing he could to make it stop hurting.

It wasn't the first time he'd killed during the war, but it was the first time that it hadn't been for His Majesty, or for his country, or for victory.

He'd had to do it. If he hadn't broken them, they would have broken him.

Now, as Cana entered the cavern beneath the guildhall, relaxed and alive and ignorant of everything he had done to her, that all-consuming hate was as far as possible from his mind.

That future was over now, and since then, he had met his mother, spoken to her, felt the wordless trust she had placed in him – and wasn't that enough of a miracle? Wasn't that a hundred times more wondrous than the easy life Cana and her father had – being in the same guild, being just _normal?_

He remembered, as well, all the little things he had forgotten when he'd been caught up in the fight-

-his father sitting at his bedside until he awoke-

-a gentle hand upon his shoulder-

-that casual willingness to postpone the invasion if he needed the time to recover-

-and all the love he felt in return.

He treasured his place at his father's side, and the small acts of kindness that were the closest a man so damned could come to expressing affection. What did it matter if their relationship would never be as vocal as Cana's with her father? He treasured being able to converse with his mother, even only once, for that was once more than should have been possible. What did it matter that she didn't know who he was, when she had elected to pin her hopes on him anyway, sending him back in time and agreeing to accompany him to Alvarez?

Just being close to them both was an unbelievable gift.

And wasn't that enough?

He watched Cana yelp and reach for her cards when she saw him, only for Erza to place herself between them, explaining the situation as concisely as possible. He knew, with a strange kind of certainty, that if she'd attacked, he wouldn't have been able to do a thing to defend himself. One paralyzing thought dominated his mind: _how could I have done that to her?_

He might have understood, if it had been necessary to achieve His Majesty's wish.

But, it hadn't been. It was all on him. He had crushed something so beautiful as their love for no one's sake but his own. They had it and he didn't, and he'd known that taking it away from them wasn't going to give it to him, and he still hadn't been able to just let them be.

Most of the lives he had taken back then he considered to be casualties of war; tragic but blameless. But in that one instant when Cana's living gaze had met his, he knew that her death was going to haunt him.

* * *

The repeated use of Fairy Glitter, magic attuned so strongly to Fairy Tail's spirit that it could affect Mavis in her ghostly state, shattered her projected form. After a century of being stuck somewhere between life and death, prevented from moving on by the same crystal that had been unable to truly bring her back, her body had gradually recovered enough magic to restore the immortality Zeref's curse had burned away from her. It registered the destruction of her projected self as a threat, and retaliated by exploding the crystal and obliterating the stasis field that had kept her in suspended animation. Her body was finally free… and alive under its own power.

For there could be no doubt now that she was alive. She flexed her fingers, marvelling at the strange way that they returned to a half-bent equilibrium as soon as she focussed on something else. She took a single step forwards and started at the sound of her foot slapping the stone. Adopting a flamingo-like posture, she tried gamely to see the red blush of impact disappearing from her foot, before finding that flailing arms were not as well-suited for balance as she had hoped in a body that was now susceptible to gravity.

Erza stepped forward to support her, and she leaned on the warrior's arm, giggling all the while. "I had forgotten how much _feeling_ there is, in being alive!"

"You really are alive…" August whispered.

"Yup!" Mavis beamed at him. It was only because she was beaming at everyone and everything right now, but as that didn't stop her smile from lighting up the cavern like a solar flare. "I'm kind of relieved, to be honest. I calculated at least a twenty percent chance that I was actually dead in there, and even higher that the whole thing would just explode, but it didn't, and now I can hit things without my hand going right through them!"

She proceeded to demonstrate this by using Erza as her test subject, who managed to wince, look disapproving, and hold in a laugh all at once.

"What do you mean, explode?" Cana demanded. "No one warned me about that!"

"Hmm, well, I wasn't exactly three-sigma confident that Fairy Heart could be safely contained within a living human being without additional restraints," Mavis breezed, choosing to ignore Cana's somewhat alarmed expression. Concentrating, she touched a hand to her own heart. "It seems to be okay, though. I can still feel it… it's like it's a part of me _._ I'm sure Zeref will know how to use it safely."

This closing remark had been delivered with the same brightness as the rest of her chatter – if a little rougher, as she rediscovered that talking too much too quickly would dry out a non-illusory mouth – and yet it seemed to draw clouds across Erza's countenance.

"You still intend to go, then?" the Seventh Master asked of her predecessor.

"I do. I have a duty to speak to Zeref… especially now that I know I _can_. And if I can save my guild from this terrible future in the process, all the better."

After a tense moment, Erza sighed. "If you truly wish to go, I will not stop you. _However_ ," she added firmly, gripping Mavis's arm a little tighter as she tried to pull away. "I _will_ insist that you do not go and meet any foreign heads of state without any clothes on. And no, I don't care what your previous relationship with them may have been."

"…Oops," Mavis giggled.

* * *

Erza escorted the two to August's airship, which was parked just outside the city limits. Her desire to accompany them further was obvious, but Mavis politely and firmly turned her down. This was something she had to do on her own – not least because nothing would compromise her message of peace more than sneaking a powerful Fairy Tail mage into Alvarez with her.

The flight back home was a great deal more complicated than the one to Fiore. August could have put this down to any number of things – the fact that night had well and truly fallen; the risk of encountering Alvarez ships flying in the opposite direction; his own anxiousness about presenting Mavis to His Majesty – but in reality, it was because he kept catching himself watching his passenger rather than where he was going.

The airship fascinated Mavis. She spun impatiently in the co-pilot's seat; ran three laps of the entire ship as soon as he had confirmed it was safe to do so; poured over the winking array of controls with feline obsession, forgetting her newfound solidity more than once as she poked and prodded at the more unusual of the switches.

She was every bit as playful as she had been before she died, and livelier than he could have imagined. It was easy for him to understand why she had been chosen as First Master, in spite of her age – she knew when to be serious and when to lead _,_ but not even death had been able to temper that vitality, that beautiful curiosity.

The more he observed, the more he realized he had seen this behaviour before – not from her, but from His Majesty. There had always been flashes when he, too, acted the age he appeared rather than the age he was. Sometimes it came as a streak of naïve arrogance or childish cruelty, but more often than not it was sheer unbridled excitement, usually over some new matter of magic he had discovered. August had shared it when he was younger. As he had grown older, and that part of His Majesty hadn't, he had truly come to adore those moments of brilliant joy when they studied magic together.

Being able to see that in her, too… well, it was about to make him stall the airship over the ocean for the third time that flight. At least _she_ had the excuse of being perpetually stuck in a teenage body to justify her attention span.

In the end, he asked her to stop experimenting with the ship while he was trying to fly it, which she grudgingly agreed was for the best.

Unfortunately, with nothing else to do, Mavis Vermillion turned to what she did best: thinking.

And, just as he had grown accustomed to the improbable reality of flying his mother across the ocean to meet with his father, she stated, "There's a lot you're not telling us, isn't there?"

He could no more lie to her than he could tell her the truth about himself, so he eased a lever forward and flipped a switch and let the airship hum a non-committal answer.

"I don't know much about you," she persisted. "But I find it easier to believe that you have done the impossible and travelled through time than that you came to Fairy Tail without informing Zeref… let alone that you elected not to tell him about the future you had seen. Makarov told me you are closer to him than anyone."

"I would not presume to describe myself in that way," he demurred softly.

She nodded in acknowledgement of the formality, but any hope that she was thereby dropping the subject was exposed as flightless before it had been nudged over the edge of the nest. "How bad did he get, in the future?"

"It wasn't his fault!" he protested before he could stop himself, and there was far more steel to it than he had intended. "You can't imagine how scared he was! Natsu hadn't been able to kill him; Fairy Heart was forever beyond his reach; the remnants of the empire's army didn't stand a chance against Acnologia! The hopes that had sustained him for so long had been smashed down one by one! Every day brought him closer to the hell of being the only person left alive-"

A soft hand touched his arm – a hand that, in this present, was as solid as his arm was unscarred. "You don't have to justify it to me," Mavis told him. "I know that fear, and more. I could not bear it for six months; I do not know how he has managed for four hundred years. And to think that he has used that time to create something as magnificent as his empire…"

Unsure of whether to agree with her or console her, he ended up saying nothing. He stared out to the horizon, the meeting-point of night and distance, and longed to know how to help her.

After a while, she murmured, "I wonder if he is as I remember him. It hasn't been that long for me, but for him… do you think he's still the person I knew?"

"Yes." August could not help answering her, even though he knew his assertion would seem unsubstantiated to this woman who hardly knew him. "He is, I know it. And when he finds out you're alive…"

She seemed to draw away from him, then. A shake of her head sent golden hair rippling all around her, flickering in the control panel's myriad glow, and then she stood up. "I want to be on my own for a bit."

Although it was a declaration, it came with a glance of askance, and he gave a single nod. "Of course."

He kept a close eye on her as she walked out onto the top deck – manipulating the shielding controls so that the headwind was nothing more than a breeze when it reached her – and once he was sure she wasn't in danger, he turned his attention elsewhere, respecting her wish.

Or, at least, he tried to.

There was so much he wanted to say to her, and he had no idea how. It would be easy to claim that he had dreamt so often of this moment that the reality of it was tripping him, or that he had spent the years racking up so many questions to ask her that he no longer knew where to start… but it would be a lie. He had never once imagined that he would see his mother alive. Even when His Majesty had informed him of Fairy Heart's existence, it hadn't once occurred to him – or to His Majesty – that it had the power to bring Mavis Vermillion back to this world.

That he would never get to meet his mother had always been as much a certainty in his life as the need to keep his true identity from His Majesty. Being able to converse with her was an incredible gift, but one he didn't know what to do with. He hadn't been given a chance to sit down and think about what he wanted to ask her – not even to fully process the reality of what was happening.

Truthfully, though, that wasn't the reason for his hesitance either.

How could he even think about the questions he wanted answering for his own sake, when she looked so anxious up there; so alone?

She had sent him back in time, listened to his plea, agreed to come to Alvarez with him, trusted him against the advice of her own guild… she had already done so much for him, and she didn't even know who he was.

He wanted to do something in return, yet he had no idea how to act around her.

* * *

It was some time later that August judged it safe enough to switch the airship over to autopilot and join her out on the deck. She heard the tapping of his staff on the ground, and turned to offer him a small smile – a sign that she was prepared to talk again.

Still, he did not speak, at first. He leaned on the railings beside her, letting the gentle breeze add its unpredictable rustle to the engines' steady hum, and waited for his eyes adjust to the night. Away from the contrast of light in the ship's bridge, the night wasn't dark at all. The clouds of war had rolled away, revealing stars above and their reflections below; a steadfast path guiding them onwards. It seemed too beautiful to be real. Such natural beauty must have existed in the future he had left, and he wondered if he had become unable to see it, or if the smoke from the burning fields had simply blocked it out.

"I feel so nervous," Mavis said. It should have been an awkward admission, and yet her voice was full of wonder. "It's strange. I felt the same emotions as a projected consciousness as I did when I was alive, but I had forgotten how physical they are. My heart is going like _this._ " She made rapid fluttering motions with her hands. "It tickles. I keep trying to swat at it."

He couldn't help smiling, and this time, she did look a little sheepish as she inquired, "Is that normal?"

"I think so," he answered. "To tell you the truth, I also feel a little nervous about seeing His Majesty again."

"Because you ran off without telling him?"

"That's certainly part of it."

For a long moment, they watched the silent stars together.

"You asked me why I didn't tell him about the time travel," August began.

Her gaze flicked to him, signalling her curiosity, and then returned to the skies ahead, letting him know that there was no pressure for him to speak. Warmth filled him at the sight of how considerate she was.

"It wasn't because of anything he did in the future, because I understand why he acted as he did. There is nothing he did that I cannot forgive him for. But there was something Erza said to me – the Erza from my future. She said that, towards the end of the war, His Majesty had told members of your guild that he would use the power of Fairy Heart to change time. She claimed he wanted to go back four hundred years in order to save his brother's life and prevent himself from becoming immortal. I didn't believe her, but… I suppose I had underestimated how much of my disbelief relied on my certainty that such time travel was impossible. When you sent me back in time, it shocked me, I think. I am ashamed to admit it, but it was enough to make me doubt His Majesty."

"But you don't feel that way any more…?" she wondered.

"I confronted him about it. He said he had considered the idea, but discarded it in favour of another way of stopping Acnologia. There was too much in this world that mattered for him to give it up so easily. I came to realize how foolish I had been to doubt him… and now that I've met you, I know it for sure. You have always meant so much to him – and now you're here, _alive_ , caring enough about him to enter the enemy stronghold to speak with him! There is no way he will obliterate the world in which he met you!"

To his astonishment, not even a ghost of a smile touched her lips. "I don't know about that. I can think of a great many reasons why he would prefer to have never met me, and none the other way around."

He could do nothing but stare at her. "He _loved_ you!"

"I know," she whispered. "But I didn't love _him_."

"Yes, you did!" he exclaimed, more out of shock than anything else.

"I can't have done!" The anguish in it burst from her throat like shards of crystal. "If I had, he would have died, like I did!"

"I _know_ you did-"

"I know you mean well," she overrode him, shaking her head, "but you _can't_ know that."

It was all he could do to stop himself from insisting that he _could._

Because, sometimes, the child of two exceptionally powerful mages inherited not only magic from their parents, but the most vivid and influential of their memories impressed into it.

The first few years of his life had been a hellish muddle of dissociation; of being able to read before he could speak, and then speaking coherent fragments of languages the matrons at the orphanage knew he had never heard before; of flipping between the mind of a hyperactive, adventurous, genius girl and a lonely, sorrowful and sometimes hateful man, before the personality of a terrified child had finally begun to form memories of its own and, in so doing, assert its dominance; of one orphanage after another labelling him from freakish to possessed until he had finally fled, as soon as he had become physically able to utilize the survival knowledge he impossibly possessed.

When it came right down to it, he had known the names and faces of his parents long before he had been able to find traces of them in the mirror.

He had lived enough of those moments with his mother to _know,_ without the filter of some twisted curse, how true her feelings had been… and he couldn't tell her any of it.

"I did everything wrong," Mavis murmured, her voice lost somewhere amongst the forest of stars. "He was kind to me. He helped me. I liked him, and I _knew_ he was lonely… but I moved on from our encounter and thought no more of it. For ten years, I made no attempt to contact him. When I met him the second time, it was pure chance. I was happy to see him again, _really_ happy, until I found out that I was cursed the same as he was… and I ran. Being around him was the last thing I wanted, then."

"You were overwhelmed," he tried to reassure her. "He understood that."

She just shook her head dully. "At first, I was. But I soon came to understand that he had only been trying to help. If I had stayed and listened, I knew he would have helped me come to terms with my situation. Even when I realized that, though, I didn't go back to him. Not even to apologize. I kept running, as if I could prove him wrong just by wishing hard enough. He spent six months looking for me.

"And when he finally found me, he didn't care how ungrateful I'd been, or how hard I'd made things for him. All he wanted was to help me – to teach me his methods of controlling the curse; to show me that it was possible to live with it."

 _To protect the light he had seen inside you,_ August finished inwardly. _To stop the curse of your existence from consuming the curiosity and the compassion that he had fallen in love with._

His grip tightened around the railings.

He said nothing. He couldn't.

"I realized, then, how kind he truly was," she swallowed. "How thoughtless and selfish I'd been… and I really did want to stay with him. I thought that it didn't matter how dark the world became, since we would always be able to find happiness if we were together. I thought I loved him…"

"You did," he insisted, but she was beyond hearing.

"Do you know what the worst thing was?"

He shook his head.

"How much he trusted me. Never mind that I'd spent ten blissful years with my guild without once wondering how he was getting on. Never mind that I had run from him for six months, even after I understood that he wasn't to blame. All I had to do was tell him that this time would be different – that this time I would stay with him for sure – and he just _believed_ me. He loved me so much. And yet, I…"

There was a moment of pure quiet, two almost-strangers brought together in the dark.

"The thing was, I never understood him," Mavis resumed. "I had never been alone. I might not have had _friends_ when I was young, but Zera wasn't too bad, and most members of the guild treated me decently when the Master wasn't around. When the guild was destroyed, I _should_ have been alone, but I wasn't. Some subconscious part of me was so opposed to the concept of being alone that it created an illusory being to keep me company, given a personality and independent thought by my magic. Then I met Yuri and Warrod and Precht, and soon I had my entire guild as well.

"By the time I met Zeref again, I had never once experienced the feeling of _loneliness._ The thought of not having people to face life's challenges with was utterly incomprehensible to me. It wasn't that I thought loneliness was _bad_ – I simply wasn't aware that it was a thing people _felt._ "

She shook her head, wondering at her own naivety.

"For me, having Zeref as a companion with which to face the terrible future wasn't anything _special._ It was _more of the same._ Taking on the unknown with a friend by my side – that was my entire life in a single sentence! But to someone who had been alone for three hundred years, it was everything _._ I was so much more to him than he ever was to me. The curse knew that."

When she fell silent, August prompted her, gently, "This has bothered you for a very long time, hasn't it?"

"It has," she confessed. "Because I finally understand how he felt. After I died, or _didn't_ die, I… well, perhaps _drifted_ would be the best word to describe it. There was nothing but darkness. Sometimes I caught flashes of sight or sound, coming, I think, from a member of my guild. It was a very long time before I acquired any sense of self, and longer still before I could perceive the passage of time in the visions I saw, and distinguish them from my own memories. But I couldn't observe the world of my own volition, and I certainly couldn't interact with it. Not until Tenrou Island… though I guess you won't know about that, will you?"

"I know," he informed her. "News of Acnologia's first appearance in decades certainly made it across the sea… and His Majesty thought it important to fill us in upon his return. He said that Fairy Heart's power created a shield that not even Acnologia could break."

"Fairy Sphere," Mavis clarified. "Though it wasn't all my doing. It was the strength of those who were there, and their faith in Fairy Tail, that called me out of that nothingness and into reality. For the first time, I was able to interact with the physical world. I used this magic to raise a Fairy Sphere around them. In the seven years that followed I continued to gain strength, until I could project my consciousness into the illusory body you saw. At last I could see and hear things for myself… and be with my guild again.

"But it wasn't the same. I was never really a part of this Fairy Tail. I couldn't work in the guild, or fight for them during the Grand Magic Games or the battle against Tartaros. I could advise, I suppose, but they already had a great Master in Makarov. Even now, as we stand on the verge of war, I'm not out there protecting my guild. I'm something to _be_ protected. Makarov, Erza, Natsu – I love them all, but I know I'll never be one of them. This isn't my guild any more. This isn't my home.

"Thus it was surrounded by friends that I first came to realize what it meant to be lonely. And I felt the smallest fraction of what Zeref must have done when he met me… and when I left him not once, but _three times_. The sheer magnitude of the hurt he must have felt when I died and he did not terrifies me. I try to imagine it, and-"

Her words dissolved into a strangled sob. "To have lived-" she began, and choked, and tried again. "To have lived a hundred years knowing that the one person who could have saved him from that loneliness never loved him back… How could a world in which he never met me be anything but better than the one in which he did?"

He reached for her, and then stopped. How could he presume to hold her, when he knew her but she didn't know him? His arm fell back to his side, but the few inches of summer air between them were not enough to insulate him from the anguish radiating from her quivering body.

This wasn't what he had wanted. He had hoped to get to know her; to see her smile; perhaps, even, to comfort her. Not _this_ – not watching her tear herself apart over feelings he knew were true.

At last, he spoke again. "If you wanted, you could make that world come to be."

"What?"

"Fairy Heart can send people back through time. You could send _yourself_ back. With your knowledge from the future, you can teach your friends magic yourself, and avoid becoming cursed. You could still create Fairy Tail, exactly as it was the first time round, without ever meeting His Majesty… without ever having to fall in love. You could have the life you were denied, in that world where you and he never met."

The engines hummed, the night breeze danced, and Mavis turned to him with eyes wide enough to absorb the light of a thousand galaxies.

"I could erase all of it…" she breathed. "He would never have to live with my betrayal, because he would never meet me. He won't have to endure heartbreak, because he won't fall in love with me! He'd be happier like that, wouldn't he? I never brought him anything but suffering. It would be much better if we'd never met!"

She blinked, and all at once the universes in her eyes blurred into a single candleflame, flickering behind a curtain of tears. "But if I did that, I'd never get to meet him! I wouldn't get to see his shy smile, or know that there's someone who truly understands my isolation, or be able to discuss rare magic with him that no one else has even heard of, or- you know that thing he does, when he's trying to teach you something and you just can't grasp it and his explanations become more and more bizarre the more anxious he gets? And then it finally clicks for you, and he just kind of _lights up,_ and he tries _so_ hard to pretend he isn't twice as excited about your success as you are?"

He nodded, trying so hard to not smile.

"Well, I think I'd miss that a lot-" She stopped herself with a gulp, as if realizing that she was getting carried away, and continued in a far more sombre tone. "I remember the silly little things just as much as the big ones, and… and even though I'd be a complete stranger to him, I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about him. I would spend every day wondering where he was, what he was doing, if he was happier without me, if it would _really_ be too dangerous for me to meet him just once… and I can't live like that! I don't want to lose him! I don't care if I'd get a hundred un-cursed years living with my guild; none of that would matter if I never got to meet him!"

Wild and desperate and unrestrained and truer than any words she had ever spoken. "I know it's selfish of me, but I can't give up the world in which I met him! I just _can't!_ "

And he asked, gently, "Is that not love?"

Mavis blinked. "I don't know. Is it?"

"If it isn't," said he, "I don't know what is."

"Oh," she said.

And then, "Oh."

And then she couldn't say anything else, because the tears wouldn't let her. She collapsed against the railings, sobbing and choking and sobbing again, and when he couldn't stand it any more he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into a hug, and she seemed content to sob into his chest instead.

"It hurts," she sniffed. "I can't breathe, and my eyes burn, and my heart is going all out of time… I had forgotten how much it hurts to cry."

He held her a little tighter. "That is what it means to be alive."

She sniffed again and said nothing. She didn't have to.

The airship carried them further and further west. Above, the stars moved slowly in their sleep. An orange glow was beginning to bloom in the distance, where the lights of Alakitasia, too far away to be resolved, merged into a wide pseudo-dawn filling the entire western horizon. That was home. That was where Zeref awaited them.

"Thank you for listening to me," Mavis murmured.

"That's alright."

She stepped back and looked up at him blearily. Despite her red-rimmed eyes, there was a glow to her that far outstripped the sky ahead of them. "You are very kind, to show such sympathy to an enemy."

As if he could ever, _ever_ think of her as an enemy. He tried to tell her so, but she silenced him with a wonderful smile.

"I know that Zeref is a good man," she assured him. "But that's just my intuition speaking – I had no concrete evidence I could use to convince Erza and the others. Well, now I do."

Arms outstretched, she spun a full circle on the deck and beamed up at him. "He must be a good man, to have earnt the love of someone like you."

"I could say the same to you," he smiled.

For the first time in almost a century, Mavis's laughter rang out over the moonlit ocean. "I suppose you'd see it that way, wouldn't you?"


	6. We Showed It No Concern

**State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Six: We Showed It No Concern**

No one challenged August as he radioed down for permission to land in Vistarion.

No one glanced twice at his personal airship as it descended with passable expertise into its usual spot next to His Majesty's own, one of the few imperial vessels which had yet to join the invading army.

Quite a few people stared at the barefooted, fey-like girl who followed behind him, but only when they thought he wasn't looking, and as they crossed the courtyard and entered the palace proper, the stares died away completely. The servants here had had decorum drilled far too deeply into them to be swayed from their duties by a stranger.

Mavis, too, seemed to quieten as they approached the throne room, although he suspected her reasons were completely different. The airfield and the hangar had both fascinated her. Despite being more experienced in military affairs than most of the Alvarez soldiers present, said experience had been of wars fought a hundred years ago, with none of the technology or precision that characterized the modern empire's might. Even the rich yet sleek architecture of the palace had intrigued her, and she'd skipped on ahead, savouring the lush carpets underfoot and running her fingers over the empire's emblem carved into the woodwork. He'd shaken his head, smiled, and made no attempt whatsoever to rein her in.

Yet the closer they came to the heart of the palace, the more subdued she became, until she was but a quiet shadow in his footsteps. When they reached a pair of doors so extraordinarily grand that there could be no doubt what lay beyond, he paused, and turned to face her.

"Nervous?" he asked.

She puffed out her cheeks.

"It'll be alright," he assured her, smiling. "I'll be with you."

"You're very strange," she told him bluntly. Before he could say anything, she nodded towards the door, indicating that she was ready to go in.

He raised his hand and knocked. At the same time, he allowed his magical presence to flare out – not a threatening gesture, but one which would allow His Majesty to sense and recognize him from the far side of the door. Mavis tilted her head curiously, no doubt sensing the remnants of Fairy Heart's magic within his aura for the first time, but she made no comment.

When the command came back to enter, he refrained from taking the moment to compose himself he would have preferred – Mavis was nervous enough without seeing that same apprehension in her guide – and he marched straight into the hall.

It was yet another unnecessarily grand room, though this one, at least, had a practical use. In the very centre was a large round table, surrounded unevenly by thirteen seats. All were currently empty, for the room's sole occupant was leaning up against the table instead, far too casual for an official meeting of the Twelve – no, far too casual for an emperor full stop. A single sheet of parchment was unfurled across the table, held down by what looked like books of dark magic acting as impromptu paperweights. Light projected up from it to form a three-dimensional map of Fiore, complete with flashing symbols to represent the present or future movements of the imperial air force.

This virtual map remained in existence even as August – with Mavis trailing behind – entered the room. While August knew that His Majesty had no reason to believe he would be escorting an enemy commander into the palace, he thought it for the best that Invel wasn't present. Between His Majesty's casual posture, his inappropriate use of dangerous books, and his lack of concern for vital military secrets, the Chief of Staff would have had at least three reasons to snap at his sovereign before the conversation could even begin.

As it was, His Majesty barely spared them a glance before focussing straight back on the map. "Where've you been?" he demanded. "When I said I was willing to postpone the invasion for you, the implication was that you would _tell_ me you needed more time, not just drop off the face of the earth for six hours!"

The automatic apology was still half-formed in August's mouth when the other sighed. "Well, no matter. You're here now. We leave in half an hour. You'll ride in my ship, and we'll meet up with Invel and the main fleet off the western coast of Fiore."

August swallowed, and then said, "Your Majesty, there's someone who needs to speak to you."

"This really isn't the best time," came the absent response, as Zeref dismissed the projection and began rolling up the map.

"It has to be now."

"Tell them-"

"Zeref," Mavis said softly.

Zeref stopped.

The parchment unrolled itself from yielding fingers. All the thoughts in his mind silently unformed themselves and returned to slumber. He turned, as if on autopilot, to stare at Mavis. Still half-hidden behind her escort, she clasped her hands together and met his gaze as bravely as she could.

There they stood, two people gazing at each other for the first time in almost a century; watching, waiting, neither so much as breathing lest it break the world of glass spinning out between them-

Then an explosion of crystal fury was bearing down upon August as that black gaze swept towards _him._ "What is the meaning of this callous _prank?"_

"It's no prank!" Mavis retorted. In one swift motion, she planted herself in front of August with arms outstretched, as if the presence of danger had somehow converted her nerves into pure resolve. He had seen it often in the Fairy Tail mages he had fought; he should have known where they had got it from. "I'm here, Zeref. I'm really here."

"No, you're not." Zeref took one step backwards, and then another, and started when his heel made contact with the table. "You can't be. You died."

"I didn't." Mavis stepped forwards, but paused when he flinched back again. "Precht's attempt to save me didn't merely cause the creation of Fairy Heart in my body. Somehow, impossibly, it kept me alive. All this time, I've been trapped somewhere between life and death… and now I've finally become strong enough to live outside the restoration crystal."

Zeref shook his head desperately, all words chased away except one: "No. No. No…"

"It's true, Zeref. I'm alive. I wouldn't have believed it myself, but everything is so solid now, and my cheeks hurt when I smile too much and my eyes go all funny if I stare at something for too long and all my emotions come with weird new side-effects…" She glanced awkwardly over her shoulder, and received a nod of encouragement from August. "But I'm here. I'm alive. I really am."

Eyes far too black to be scrutable flicked from Mavis to August, and back again. August identified the silent question at once, but Mavis answered it before he could. He felt an odd flicker of pride that she, too, could understand him so well.

"He didn't know I was alive when he came looking for Fairy Heart," she explained. "I wasn't certain myself until a few hours ago, when Cana freed my body from the lacrima. If I'd known, I would have come to see you much sooner. There's something I have to say to you, Zeref."

She cast another glance at August, and he knew she was remembering everything that had come to light as they'd flown beneath the stars. "Two things, actually. Will you… will you listen?"

* * *

Like a little bird tempted down from the branches by seed and patience, the Emperor of Alvarez and infamous Black Mage gave a timid nod. Mavis slowly approached, and this time he didn't try to back away, held by the magnetic forces induced by their still-unbroken eye contact. When she stopped, it wasn't for fear of startling him back into flight, but because her inimitable courage was a little rusty when it came to dealing with a real, physical, heart-palpitating nervousness.

"Zeref…" she began, then sucked in a breath and had another go. "I want to say that I'm sorry. I wanted to stay with you; I really did. Despite everything that happened, those few days I spent with you were the happiest of my life, in the world that belonged to you and I. When I said that I would stay with you, I truly meant it, with everything that I am and that I might have been."

He said nothing.

Mavis glanced away, and the glow of her resolution seemed to dim a little. "I know you probably hate me," she murmured, to the unfeeling stone below. "I know that you've had to suffer so much on your own, knowing that I…" She shuddered; even after confronting her doubts on the airship, she still couldn't put it into words. "I am truly sorry. I just wanted you to know that."

To her surprise, a small hand touched her cheek – too small to belong to an adult; a hand no larger than her own. "I could never hate you, Mavis," Zeref murmured, his every word as soft as his unscarred palm. "You should be the one to hate me, for ending your life far too soon."

"I've never blamed you for that!" she protested. "It wasn't your fault! I know that better than anyone!"

"Of course it was my fault. I'm _good_ at suppressing the curse, Mavis. My methods of controlling it _work;_ anyone in Alvarez can tell you that. But I thought you were safe. I thought you couldn't die. So I made the conscious decision not to try as hard as I normally would. I decided to… to let myself feel all the things I had been denying myself for centuries. That's why you died – all because of my miscalculation."

Mavis insisted, "We _both_ miscalculated. I assumed my immortality would protect me too. If I'd known the truth, there are a hundred things I would have done differently! It wasn't your fault, Zeref. And even if it was – I didn't die, so there's nothing you can blame yourself for! It's taken so long, but I'm here right now! I can finally speak to you again!"

She took a deep breath, and placed her hand over his. "And it means I get to tell you what I never did all those years ago. I love you, Zeref. With all my heart."

His expression didn't change. Nor did his tone – still soft, still kind, still wondrous.

That was the worst part; the sheer serenity of his denial.

"No, you don't."

"I do, Zeref! I know I do!"

The silence distorted her sincere protests into childish petulance.

"No," he told her, and it was still so very kind, just like the thumb which traced across her cheek as he lowered his hand back to his side. "You don't. But, that's okay. It's better this way."

"Zeref, I _do_ -"

"You don't now, and you didn't then," he informed her. "Do you think I never knew what it meant, that you died and I didn't?"

"You're right, I didn't love you back then," she snapped, eyes flashing. "I didn't love _anyone_. I didn't even know what love _was._ "

"Don't be ridiculous."

"What's _ridiculous_ is being ten years under this curse and not having a single corpse to show for it!"

Even Zeref recoiled from the bluntness of her words, but she stepped forwards, closing the gap once more.

"You explain _that_ to me, Zeref," Mavis demanded. "And don't blame it on the war, because the guild was founded months before the trade wars started and there had been many years of rebuilding by the time I met you again. Besides, I never treated the wars as a game like you do; I only ever fought to protect those around me. I certainly didn't have methods of controlling a curse I had no idea I was under. To have not killed those close to me, I must have never have valued their lives. And since loving someone is to put the highest value possible on their life, I couldn't have loved any of them."

"There will be some rational explanation for the curse's behaviour…" Zeref objected, but his unease was nothing before her certainty.

"The explanation is very simple. All my life, I took my friends for granted. I cared for them, yes, but I always expected to be cared _for_ without ever realizing it consciously. For me, that was simply _normal._ "

"That doesn't make sense."

"I'd never been alone, Zeref. I'd never _not_ had friends – whether they were magical constructs or otherwise. And because I had nothing to compare those friendships to, I never valued Yuri, Precht and Warrod as I ought to have done. The curse, which prevented me from registering the anomalies in my own behaviour just as it prevents you from seeing your own inconsistencies, actually worked in my favour. It made it _literally impossible_ for me to understand the value of those who loved me… including you, Zeref.

"That's why I didn't love you. And that's why I can say to you now that I _do._ I've been alone for a very long time. I understand why I meant so much to you back then… and why you mean so much to me now."

Closer. This time, neither of them moved away.

"Perhaps," Zeref prevaricated, his every word raw. "Perhaps that could be the case. But then… what are we supposed to do now?"

A smile of reassurance graced her lips, the same one she had offered him when she had promised to stay by his side; the same one he had fallen for all those years ago. "We don't have to do anything. I love you, but I don't expect you to hold any feelings for me after all this time. I know it's been far longer for you than it has been for me. I just wanted to tell you, because I finally had the ability to do so. I love you. That's all."

Because it _was_ all.

That was all she wanted. All she needed. More than she had hoped for in so many years of drifting.

 _He_ was the one who said, "I don't want that to be all."

"Wha- what do you mean?"

Mavis was trying to be calm, but her heart was ignoring her brain's insistence that this was not the best time for a gymnastics display, and physical emotions were so _silly._

"I thought the same," he mused. "It would be utterly ridiculous for me to still feel anything for you after all this time. I did not foresee any problems in fighting your guild, or in taking Fairy Heart from you… and yet, now that you're here, it's like nothing has changed. I don't understand it."

Zeref shook his head, bewildered. His eyes were shining brighter than should have been possible for such a pure black, for the light within them danced along a thin film of tears.

"Mavis," he whispered. "If your offer is still open, I would very much like to stay by your side."

"Please do," she whispered, and those two words were all she could manage before her voice broke beneath the weight of her emotions.

Though, since that was when his lips met hers, it probably didn't matter anyway.

* * *

Out in the corridor, August was doing a slightly better job of controlling his emotions.

He leaned back against the wall, heedless to the fact that its gold-embossed relief hadn't exactly been designed with comfort in mind. He felt too weak to stand on his own. It was taking all his strength, mental and physical, just to prevent himself from bursting into tears.

The tears he was holding back weren't sad ones. In fact, he did not think he had ever been happier. But it seemed there was no way to release such overwhelming emotion except through huge and helpless sobs, and it was only his far greater experience than Mavis with managing the physical symptoms of emotion that let him to cling to his composure – albeit if such clinging felt less like stopping an unruly pet from escaping his arms and more like dangling from the edge of a cliff. He was exceedingly grateful that all eleven of the elite mages to whom he was supposed to be a wise and stable leader were a very long way away from the palace right now.

He had, naturally, left the room as soon as it became clear that his parents' reunion was evolving into something very personal.

The concept of privacy was a little unusual when invoked between him and his parents. After all, he shared enough of their memories to have seen the vulnerable side his father had never shown his subjects in Alvarez; to know his mother far better than he ought to know someone he had only met a few hours ago. He understand exactly how they had felt about each other back then. Furthermore, as the only one who could perceive those feelings without the curse twisting them, he felt a strong desire – no, a _duty_ – to help them. And that had been even before Mavis had opened her heart to him on the journey here; a direct request for help.

Even so, since neither of them had any idea quite how involved he was in their relationship, staying – well, _eavesdropping_ – would have been rude. He had quietly slipped out of the room as soon as he judged that they had both forgotten about his presence.

But he didn't _need_ to hear their conversation. Not when he knew their feelings better than he knew his own.

So he stood there, and his every breath was a struggle to retain control. Something once broken had been made whole, and he had not understood how complete life could feel until that moment.

By bringing them together, he had removed the need for the war. All those he wanted to protect would come home safely – both the colleagues awaiting their emperor's command to invade, and the strangers he had so briefly met in a guildhall in Magnolia.

And, most importantly, _they were together._ The impossible had come to pass, and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

That was where he was when he heard his father calling for him.

He didn't respond immediately. The familiar walls slotted back into place, blocking any improper modes of address from his mind. Then he stepped forward, straightened his robes, checked that his reflection looked presentable – at least there was _something_ all this gilding was good for – and returned to the room.

"What can I do for you, Your Majesty?"

His emperor stood with Mavis, not quite holding hands, but as close as they might come in such a formal situation. "There are several matters to which we must attend," came the smooth response. "Prominent amongst them is the fleet holding its position somewhere over the ocean. I'm sure Invel is growing rather anxious that he has yet to receive communication from me."

"Shall I have them return to Alvarez?"

Zeref frowned. "That is the question, isn't it? Where, exactly, are we supposed to go from here?"

"Zeref," Mavis interrupted, and they both paused to listen to her. "August told me you sought the power of Fairy Heart because you have a way of using it to destroy Acnologia."

"Did he, now?"

"Yes. And… I want you to do it. Removing Acnologia from this world is the best outcome for everyone. I will give you my power."

For a long moment, Zeref stared at her without speaking.

Then he swallowed, and said, "Mavis, if I use up Fairy Heart like that, you will die."

It took all of August's self-control to stay quiet at that, and Mavis's slow nod only made it a hundred times worse. "I guessed as much," she admitted.

"And you'd still ask me to do it?"

"It did factor into my decision to come here," Mavis said, with a small smile.

This time, August couldn't stop himself. "But you'll die!"

"I'm not supposed to be alive," she reminded them gently. "I'm so glad that I am, because it let me meet you again, Zeref, and see the wonderful home you have built for yourself. But that miracle has also given us the singular opportunity to protect this world from the threat that we both know will destroy it. We won't get another chance to stop Acnologia. I would gladly give my life if it means protecting you, and my guild, and… and all of this world in which we met."

Zeref was silent for a very long time.

"Zeref?" she prompted softly.

"I understand," said he, at last, and the soft smile was back on his face. "You haven't changed at all, Mavis."

Her eyes shone. "Then, you'll do it?"

"I will. Give Fairy Heart to me."

"Please, take it."

"You're doing it now?" August interrupted. For perhaps the first time in ninety years of service, he failed to notice the disapproving look he received from his emperor. Mavis was going to give up her magic, her _life,_ right here and now? Before he could even say goodbye?

But he couldn't use _that_ as his argument, so he blustered, "But Acnologia isn't here yet! There's no need to do it now!"

"He approaches," Zeref murmured. "The coming of war compels him."

"But she'll _die!"_

He couldn't process how readily Mavis would give up her hard-won life; how willing Zeref was to take it from her. In his future, Acnologia had not appeared until the war was already over. They could have hours – days – weeks – to spend together before any of this became necessary. Perhaps, now that the war would never happen, Acnologia would not come at all. Shouldn't they be doing everything they could to try and protect that love, that life?

"Better that we prepare ourselves now than risk losing yet more of our world to his tireless hunger," Zeref said shortly.

"He's right." Mavis added her agreement in a tone which clearly informed him that the matter was settled, and he glanced away. Their decision was made. He had to accept it. Both were willing to put the world above themselves; it was only him, and his reluctance to lose the mother with whom he had only just been reunited, that was too selfish to support them.

Mavis closed her eyes. A golden glow enveloped her entire body, strongest right over her heart, as if her very soul was made of heaven's light. Just like he remembered, it was far more than mere magic. It was watching a rainstorm through the window of a firelit room; collapsing into an armchair after a feast, safe in the knowledge that there was no need to move until morning; the prophetic patterns drawn in the steam of a mug on a winter's morning – all the comforts of home Mavis had never experienced until she founded her guild, nor had August experienced until he reached His Majesty's empire.

Zeref touched his hand to the core of light. Her body twitched in response, but calmed again almost immediately, the tranquil expression never leaving her face. Fairy Heart blazed brighter still.

August had thought the feeling of familiarity would disappear once His Majesty began to shape the magic into another form, but it only grew stronger. That dizzying warm embrace; that promise of protection; that vast potential of worlds opening up before him… it felt just like it had on Tenrou Island.

Too much like it had on Tenrou Island.

Mavis felt it a moment after he did; her eyelids came open with a shriek. "Zeref! What are you doing? That's time travel magic!"

"I know," he said calmly.

"That won't stop Acnologia-"

"It will," he shrugged. "Eventually."

Mavis's body jerked again, but this was no harmless, automatic response. It was the struggle of a mind whose body was already beyond her control.

"Time magic is incredibly complex," Zeref mused, as if he hadn't noticed Mavis's reaction. "It took me four hundred years to work out how to send myself back in time. Even then, I'd never have managed it if the recoil from the Eclipse Gate hadn't torn a hole in the fabric of the universe."

Both the listeners recognized the calmness in his words. It was the same detached control with which he had denied Mavis's feelings, before her passion had broken through to reach him. He had closed himself off once again.

"It isn't enough on its own, of course," he continued. "Uniting the magic of space and time takes an inordinate amount of energy – more than any human being can raise on their own, myself included. Do you know how to get around that problem, Mavis? You find yourself a source of infinite magic."

"You're going to send yourself back in time?" she demanded.

"I am. Four hundred years should do it. I would promise you that I'll stop Acnologia while I'm there, but I'm not sure there's much merit in making a promise to someone who will soon never have existed. You'll have to take that one on faith."

"You promised me you wouldn't turn back time!" August burst out.

"I did, didn't I?" For a moment, those dark eyes seemed almost perplexed. "Still, I never would have imagined that it would make you _bring_ her to me! Or that you would give your power to me willingly, Mavis!"

She redoubled her efforts to pull away from him, but neither her body nor that heavenly light would obey her. As he'd said, she had given it to him of her own accord. She was no more able to command it now than she could stop the tears from spilling forth. "Why would you want to erase this world?"

"Why?" Zeref rolled the question around his tongue, curious to how it could ever be asked. "I hate this world and everything it has done to me. Perhaps a better question would be, why _shouldn't_ I erase it?"

Panic was rising in August's chest, constricting his throat, jolting his heart so erratically that it was surprising there was any room left for coherent thought. Stupid emotions, stupid physical emotions.

"But what about everything you've built?" he demanded. "What about your empire and your people-"

- _and_ me, _what about me; what about Mavis and I, who love you more than anything?-_

"- and everything you've built?"

Those black eyes genuinely didn't understand. "Do you honestly think any of that matters to me? It was all just a means to an end. _This_ end."

"You can't mean that-!"

His protest was interrupted by Mavis's shriek. The light pulsed so brightly he thought it might never recede, and although it finally did, Mavis was left gasping for breath, fighting the activation of Fairy Heart with all the strength she had.

"Zeref," she panted. "Please- don't do this-"

"Why do you care? You will disappear either way."

"I want this world to continue existing," she pleaded. "I know it has been cruel to both of us, but… it's the world where I met you, and I would give anything to protect it."

His expression softened. "Yes. This is the world where we met, Mavis. And I would give anything to end it, and I have far more to give than you."

Tears caught the light of Fairy Heart and dissected it, dripping little rainbows upon her cheeks. "I don't understand. I love you…"

"I loved you, Mavis," Zeref said softly. "I really did. When you promised me you would stay by my side… it was the first time I'd experienced true happiness in centuries. But you didn't love me. You died. And I lived on, with a loneliness a thousand times worse than before, now that I had experienced the lack of it. Meeting you gave me hope, Mavis. And that is the cruellest torment you can inflict upon a man like me."

"Zeref, I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I never wanted to- I would have given anything to stay with you-"

"Not quite anything," he corrected her, with that same gentle smile – that same terrifying, condescending neutrality. "After all, you came here today saying the exact same thing. _I want to stay with you. You're not alone any more._ Except, you didn't come here to be with me. You came here to die. You told me that you loved me, and then you told me to take the life you don't even want and use it to save your guild. Never mind that I'll be alone again. Never mind that I'll have to live with the knowledge that you had _two_ chances to keep your promise, and if your first death was an accident then your second was a choice. _Your_ choice. The world where I met you has brought me nothing but pain. It ends now."

Magic surged again. Mavis tried to say something, but the words were stolen from her lips and transformed into a scream. It kickstarted some emotion in August's heart; his shock broken by the desperate need to help her.

"Stop it!" he screamed.

"Don't interfere!" Zeref snapped back, and he stopped. He couldn't help it. His emperor had ordered it.

But at the same time, his mother was in pain, and no amount of loyalty could make him overlook that. "You're hurting her!"

"Am I supposed to care about that? About her?" Zeref's frown twisted into a laugh. "Or am I supposed to care about _you?_ Did you think I'd stop, because you asked me to? You're nothing to me! _Nothing!"_

"Please, stop it!" August shouted back. "Don't do this now! We've got time; you can calm down and think about it rationally! There'll be another way! We can find it, you and me and Mavis together-"

Zeref turned towards him, then.

Raised his hand in a deliberate, impatient, sorcerous gesture.

And August knew that the man he'd fought for-

 _-sheer black hate-_

-the man he loved-

 _-you should go ahead and die-_

-would never, ever love him back.

And in that moment of symphonies unravelling and glass palaces falling like discarded apples; as he looked upon the end of his worthless existence and could not find the motivation to flee from it a second time, Mavis looked directly at him and whispered, "Please…"

It was the only thing that mattered.

Zeref's eyes widened. Perhaps, after all this time, he expected nothing but obedience from August, even in the face of his own annihilation. Perhaps it was simply that he had never seen anyone run _towards_ death magic before. But August knew he had the power to slow that curse down for a few seconds – _he had done it before_ – and survival wasn't on his agenda.

Zeref understood his intention a moment too late to do anything about it. August dove through the wave of death even as it sucked away his life and slammed straight into his emperor. As he fell back, stumbling, cursing, August turned and thrust his own hand into the core of light.

Then Mavis released Fairy Heart, and the present was undone.

* * *

 _Thwump._

The book tumbled from slack fingers, turned a lazy half-flip in the air, and slumped across the floorboards spine-up.

August stared at it. Those precious arcane secrets, scrawled in blood and preserved for three hundred years within a binding of beaten dragonhide, lay in a heap before him, and he made no move to retrieve it.

This time, he remembered everything.

His skin still burned with the ghostly echo of death magic that hadn't yet been cast.

His heart hammered, a furious physical fright, born of that instant when life had ended but death not yet begun; an instant which had never happened.

His eyes brimmed with tears this world could not account for.

 _He lied to me._

The man who had been family to him in every possible way.

The man who had not known who he was, but who had reached out to him anyway, bringing the pitiful street urchin into his home as a student, a mage, an advisor, and finally the leader of his most trusted vassals.

The man who had given him life, and then given that life all its meaning.

 _He lied to me._

He had always known that his life was but a tool for His Majesty to use. He, and all those he served alongside, had accepted that, and gladly. A life given to the service of something larger than oneself was a great honour, and being able to help his father achieve his goal was greater still. Whether that goal was ending Acnologia's threat, as he had always believed; uniting the entire world under the empire's banner, as Invel had; or plumbing the depths of magic together for arcane secrets no man had ever laid eyes upon, as in the research sessions that comprised so many of his treasured memories – that purpose gave his life meaning.

Meaning which His Majesty intended to strip away, despite promising that he wouldn't.

He would happily die for His Majesty. But he could not give up his _life._

 _He lied to me._

The man who was everything to him.

The man to whom he was nothing.

And to whom his friends were nothing, and the country they had built together was nothing, and his mother was nothing, and all his love was nothing, and they should all just… never have been.

 _He lied to me._

The man for whom the crowds outside the palace were beginning to cheer, not knowing that the wise and noble emperor they worshipped intended to erase even the memory of their country from history.

Decades ago, that man had thought of August while sorting through discovered relics and put an ancient tome aside for him in defiance of regulation, simply because he knew he'd appreciate it – a tome which remained sprawled across the floor where it had fallen, as its present owner strode out of the room without a backwards glance.

* * *

For the first time as far as anyone involved was concerned, and the third time as August would have counted it, had he ever received an invitation, Fairy Tail was holding a strategy meeting ahead of the impending invasion.

Without shame or fabrication, Mavis told the guild her story of love and tragedy, unaware that the most tragic chapter was still to come.

Each and every one of them swore to protect her and stop Zeref.

Knowing he could not talk them out of it, but duty-bound as Guild Master to try, Makarov explained the hopeless odds they faced in setting one guild against an entire empire. He pointed out the years, decades, _centuries_ for which Zeref had been preparing for this war in contrast to their single night. He outlined the advantages of Alvarez military technology, which had been superior to theirs even before Face had been neutralized and Etherion compromised.

And when that only increased their determination, he told them about the array of powerful soldiers Zeref had at his disposal. He described their mastery of magic so rare it had spawned legends; their extensive military experience; the auras so strong that even he, exceptional old mage and enemy of authority as he was, could look upon them and remember what it meant to be afraid of death.

Most of all, he told them about the man who had stood at Zeref's right hand for longer than anyone could remember. This was the man who had mastered more kinds of magic than anyone else alive, and earned the title of Magic King in the process. This was the man whose presence alone made cowards of accomplished men. This was the most loyal, and therefore the most dangerous, of all Zeref's servants; the one who would show no mercy to enemies of the empire.

The best advice Makarov could give for fighting him was, _don't._

He did not need to have lived through the first timeline to know it wouldn't be enough to save them all.

The moment his speech was over, there came a knock at the door. When no one answered – half the guild was unused to such ceremony from their visitors, while the other half was left wondering who remained in the evacuated city to visit them at all – the door swung open.

The entire guild stared, too shocked to so much as draw a weapon to defend themselves, as into the guildhall walked the last person that anyone now wanted to see.

"I wish to defect," said August.


	7. Arise from Devotion

**State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Seven: Arise from Devotion**

"Any news, Invel?"

The short, context-less question, thrown at him the moment he set foot inside the Hall of Audience, had so little to do with what Invel had actually come here for that it took an uncharacteristic three seconds of processing before he could respond.

"No, Your Majesty. No one has seen August since this morning. One servant reports receiving instructions yesterday to alert him when you returned to the palace, but she received no response when she went to his rooms earlier."

"What is he playing at? Disappearing _now,_ of all times?"

The snap in His Majesty's voice, mirroring his sharp turn as he reversed the direction of his pacing, spoke of agitation rather than anger. That came as no surprise to Invel. On one hand, His Majesty ought to have been angry. It was one thing Irene or Larcade not being here to greet him, when both had been given important assignments elsewhere and were immediately reachable via communication lacrima. It was quite another for the leader of the Twelve to vanish from Vistarion without warning or explanation _._

On the other hand, His Majesty had always been… _different_ , when it came to August. Lenient. More understanding. More trusting.

That, Invel supposed, was what ninety years of service bought you. Well, that combined with political competency, an unfailing devotion to Alvarez and his colleagues, and invaluably powerful magic.

"I don't know what he's up to, but…" Invel hesitated, and then took the plunge. "We have to leave, Your Majesty. The army awaits your command. The aerial unit is already in place; it is only a matter of time before Fairy Tail's radar systems pick them up. We cannot delay any longer."

His emperor turned away and folded his arms, a gesture which made his accursed body look even less regal than usual.

Invel bit back a sigh with the ease of practice. "Your Majesty, we both know that he's probably in the basement of a library somewhere, doing last-minute research on the kinds of magic unique to our enemies. Once news of our declaration of war reaches him, he will catch up with the army in no time."

"One more hour."

"Your Majesty-"

"We wait another hour. That's an order, Invel."

"…Yes, Your Majesty."

As Invel bowed and left the room, wondering how he was going to break it to the air corps that they'd have to find the fuel for yet another hour of anti-radar shielding, he could hear His Majesty murmuring, "He'll be back soon. I know he will."

* * *

"So, let me get this straight," Erza began flatly. "You wish to side with us in the imminent war because, and I quote, _His Majesty must not be allowed to win._ "

"That is correct," August answered.

"To this end, you are offering to share with us the details of Zeref's invasion strategy, along with information on the magic and fighting styles used by the eleven remaining members of Zeref's personal guard."

August's lips pressed together. That wasn't all he had offered them by any means, but it seemed that the salient part of the deal required a level of trust they were not willing to afford him.

"And in return," Erza continued, "you want us to do everything in our power to take your friends alive."

"I do."

Erza stared at her notes. Then she stared at August. Then she slammed the notes down hard enough to dent the desk and slumped back in her chair.

"I just don't know what to make of this," she admitted, with a defeated half-shrug towards Makarov. "My recommendation remains unchanged. Keep him in the dungeons until the war is over, and we'll decide what to do with him then."

Silence followed this proclamation. August waited with a patience that belied the anxious thundering of his heart. This degree of mistrust was not entirely unexpected – not when the uneasy alliance he had forged with the First and Seventh Masters had been in another future altogether.

Makarov had been wearing the same bug-eyed expression of astonishment for quite some time now. August couldn't fault him for his disbelief. They had met a few times during Makarov's stay in Alvarez, the most recent of which had only been a few days ago for Makarov, though many months as far as August was concerned. Not once had he given the Master of Fairy Tail any indication that he harboured sympathies for that guild – after all, back then, he _hadn't._

It hadn't been Makarov who had broken the paralysis that had come over the guild at his sudden appearance. That had been Erza, who, sword in hand, had placed herself between him and the Master and asked him – or, rather, _dared_ him – if he would consent to wearing magic-suppressing handcuffs. She had not been expecting him to say yes. Nor, ironically, had his acquiescence lessened her suspicions in any way. It was only for decorum's sake that she was currently sat opposite him in the Master's-office-turned-police-interview-cell, and not hovering behind him with her sword at his throat. No one was fiercer than Erza when she thought her guild was in danger.

Behind the two Masters stood a third. Mavis's gaze never left him as she paced back and forth – or so he had extrapolated from brief glimpses, for he was keeping all his attention on his two non-ghostly interviewers, so as not to arouse their suspicions. Occasionally, she would instruct Erza or Makarov to relay a question to him, which they would do without giving away any sign of her presence, and he would play along. This simple task, however, was becoming more difficult for all three of them as her frustration started to get the better of her.

"I just don't see what Zeref is gaining from this!" she burst out, trying to punch a wall and sighing as her arm just disappeared into it. "If he wanted a man on the inside, he'd have sent someone who could spin a convincing backstory – like, I don't know, a new member of the Spriggan Twelve who could claim that Zeref murdered his fiancée or something! We'd never take in the man famous for his loyalty to Zeref, even if he offered us some concrete reason for his defection, which he hasn't done! Surely his actions are too bewildering to be anything other than honest…"

She whirled around and continued to pace, beating her fist repeatedly against her opposite palm, the only object present that felt solid to her. "Or maybe Zeref _knows_ I'll think that. Maybe he's playing the game one level higher, and he knows I'll suspect anyone with a perfect reason for defecting, so he sends someone so obviously suspicious that I'll talk myself into believing their innocence… gah!"

Her muttering was becoming increasingly frantic. Unfortunately for those trying to pretend she didn't exist, that made it increasingly cute to watch.

"What if analysis itself is the enemy? What if Zeref's gambit is meant to throw us into confusion, and shake our confidence by making us overthink everything? What if this is a distraction from something greater?"

There was a sharp intake of non-existent breath, followed by another sigh.

"No. If that were the case, Zeref would have sent someone expendable. As Erza says, we could just keep him locked up until the war ends, thus depriving Zeref of his greatest asset for no concrete gain. Unless Zeref _wants_ him in the guildhall, and his master plan involves breaking him out at some strategic moment…"

Of all the weird and wonderful hypotheses she had thrown around, it was that unlikely one which had two unintended consequences.

The first was that Mavis's assumption that His Majesty would come to break August out of captivity had the effect of a wrecking ball upon the mental defences he had spent the entire flight establishing. Thoughts of the catastrophe that had ended the previous future flooded his mind, and he remembered-

 _-he lied to me-_

-that His Majesty would never, ever show such compassion to him again.

The second was that even though only the tiniest sliver of the iceberg of dismay thus invoked was visible upon his face, Mavis noticed it. She froze mid-tirade, turned to him, and demanded, "You can hear me, can't you?"

"Yes," he answered, because his mother had asked him a direct question, and it would be another few seconds before the thought of ignoring it even occurred to him.

Mavis puffed out her cheeks and gave him an accusatory look.

"How is that possible?" Erza asked, glancing between the two of them. "He's not a member of our guild… is he?"

"No," August answered, because it was the right answer to give, even if it wasn't the whole truth. "It's complicated. I do know why I can see her, but… that's not information I am presently willing to divulge."

While it may have helped him gain their trust last time, it was the act of stumbling upon the truth together that had convinced them, not the knowledge itself. Mavis's deductions about how the Fairy Tail wards operated had left the conclusion indisputable in her mind, and she had won over Erza. Neither would believe that he was a Master of Fairy Tail, especially in such an unlikely way, if he just sat there and said it.

That's how he justified it to himself, anyway, but there was more than a small part of him-

 _-he lied to me-_

-which did not want to talk about the last timeline, and by talking about it, validate those awful memories. It hadn't happened this time. It _wouldn't_ happen this time. He would never make the mistake of trusting the man he had loved so much again.

"That is unacceptable," Erza said coldly.

Mavis moved around – well, _through_ – the table to stare at him from a few inches away, even bolder than she had been when she'd thought he couldn't see her. It was all he could do to hold her gaze without emotion, when the only thing he could think about was the Mavis who had spun on the airship's deck with arms outstretched and cried such hopeful tears.

Indeed, there was a touch of relief mixed in with the surge of loneliness as she backed away from him again. To the others, she asked, "May I have the room, please?"

Makarov and Erza exchanged concerned looks, but both seemed to realize at the same time that there was no danger in leaving a ghost alone with their prisoner. They left. Mavis considered the chairs they had vacated, but both had tucked them in, and he could pinpoint the exact moment that she decided asking her prisoner to pull one out for her would ruin the effect. In the end she remained standing, giving her a slight height advantage.

"You can see me," she began. "You weren't surprised to see me, and furthermore, you knew to pretend _not_ to see me. Conclusion: we've met before."

This time, she was speaking with all the confidence that her earlier jumbled hypotheses had lacked. Seeing that forceful, wonderful vitality in her once more was somehow able to lift what remained of his spirits.

Thoughtfully, Mavis continued, "However, I don't remember having met you before. Now, that on its own doesn't prove anything, because there are any number of possible explanations… but only one which matches the trace of magic I can sense upon you. Time magic. It's very faint; I'm sure your own magical presence would hide it were it not suppressed. Conclusion: I don't remember meeting you because it hasn't happened yet."

He thought about the conversation they had had on board the airship: empathy and wisdom; undying love and beautiful resolve. She was right – to her, that conversation had never happened. This Mavis did not realize she still loved Zeref. This Mavis had not opened her heart to him.

It wasn't him learning those secrets that had made the difference to their relationship, but her sharing them. He could bring the former with him into any timeline, and it wouldn't mean a thing. They were back to being total strangers.

If there was one small mercy, he supposed, it was that at least she couldn't remember how Zeref had reacted to her confession. He thought that the trust which had formed between them last time was a small price to pay to spare her that.

He closed his eyes. "You are correct."

"Then let me repeat the first question Erza put to you: what are you doing here? And by 'here' I don't mean the guildhall, but the present."

Mavis waited for him to get his thoughts in order – a kind but brutal patience; one which promised him no escape.

"The first time this war was fought, it was brutal," he recounted, once he felt that he could. "Our sides were far more evenly matched than you might imagine. It very quickly became a bloodbath. There was no armistice, nor terms of surrender; nothing but death and more death on both sides. It ended only when Erza, by then the Ninth Master of Fairy Tail and leader of your forces, was defeated and captured by Irene, and His Majesty declared the war over.

"By that point, most of my friends were dead, and you had lost more than half your guild. Over the following months, the remnants of Fairy Tail were hunted across the continent. Some were dragged back to be tortured. Most were killed on the spot. When I came back in time – although doing so was by no means my decision – I was the only one left to serve His Majesty, and the last surviving member of your guild had just passed away. To answer your question, I am here, in your guildhall _and_ in the present, because I don't want to see that future come to pass any more than you do."

Mavis considered his words carefully. Something was shimmering in her eyes – those more-perfect versions of his own emerald eyes – and he knew, just like last time, that the part of her which advised scepticism was warring with the part that simply _understood._

"You will have to forgive my bluntness," she said, "but I find that scenario difficult to believe. Even if the battle was as tightly contested as you say, there are no circumstances under which the mages of my guild would end the lives of defeated enemies."

And in those words lay another accusation: _it offended me that you sought a guarantee we would not do so in return for your offer of assistance._

August did not smile. "That is the attitude with which you started the war. It was not the attitude with which you ended it."

When she continued to glare at him, he sighed, knowing he could never deny her anything that she asked of him, silently or otherwise. "It was not our intention either, to begin with. Amongst the Twelve are mages whose magic could have singlehandedly rendered your entire guild incapable of fighting back, if they chose to apply it mercilessly – Dimaria or Jacob, for instance. Yet, that wasn't what they set out to do. My friends saw the battle as more of a game than anything else. Since our overall victory was never in question, as far as they were concerned, they set out to prove their own strength and fight on a more even footing…

"But in the first clash of the war, fate was cruel to both of us. Your guild was put in a difficult position: to lose Erza, and any hope of stopping the imperial air fleet before it reached Magnolia, or to fire your modified Jupiter Cannon at Ajeel."

Mavis winced a little at his casual mention of her guild's secret weapon, but he was too lost within his memories to notice.

"Maybe you didn't know quite how powerful the cannon was, with its homemade modifications. Maybe you'd never tested it against a human being – well, I doubt you'd tested it at all, or our spies would have found out about it. And even then, you couldn't have known that Ajeel alone amongst those I've trained possessed no kind of defensive magic, or that he had deliberately dismantled the shields on his airship to divert more power to the cannons… he was the newest of the Twelve, and not old enough to have grown out of the fallacy that raw offensive power was the only way he could prove himself worthy of us. The Jupiter blast killed him instantly."

Visions flashed before his open eyes: the young man who had been so worried at August's collapse in the _other_ -future-that-wouldn't-be, who had done what he could to help his mentor, and who, even now, would be running laps around his airship in anticipation of the upcoming fight, oblivious to the fate awaiting him.

That was why August's next words came out armoured in steel. "He was like a grandson to me. I was not the only one who sought payment for his life in blood. And after the second time I raided your hideouts, found my defeated comrades, and helped them return to the fight, even those of you who clung to the sanctity of life in the face of opponents who no longer believed you deserved that courtesy could see the futility of it. Humanity had lost the fight even before His Majesty took to the field himself. It… it really was hell."

Mavis, who had been about to snap out a defence of her guild, abruptly closed her mouth at that.

"I walk through the guildhall," he continued, unaware, "and all around me, I see, alive, those I killed in that future… and I don't know how I could have done it. Why did I think the world would be a better place without these people in it? Why was I so sure that His Majesty's goal was one worth killing for, when we never attempted any other means of achieving it; never even demanded to know the details?"

There was one face in particular which had stood out as he'd crossed the guildhall that day. She had watched him with no more and no less suspicion than anyone else, because she'd never met him before that day. But he'd met _her_ , twice, and the guilt that had clung to him when time's inversion had wiped away everyone's sins but his own assured him that there would come a time in this future when he'd have to face Cana Alberona again.

"It was hell," he repeated. "And the world never recovered from it. I can blame everything on Acnologia, just like I did for months afterwards, but all he really did was hasten the demise we had already brought upon ourselves."

Taking a deep breath, he looked her in the eye, hoping she could feel the strength of his resolve.

"It won't happen again. I won't let it. Our forces were closely matched when I fought for His Majesty with everything I had. Even if I do nothing more than spend this war sat in your guildhall, that alone may be enough to give you the advantage."

He shook his bound hands, allowing the dull clunk of metal to drive his point home.

"But I can do more than that," he continued. "I know all the details of His Majesty's plan, and I know him well enough to predict how he'll react to certain moves. I've personally had a hand in training most of the empire's strongest mages. I've fought this war once already; I know which tactics worked against particular opponents and which didn't. And… there are only two individuals in His Majesty's employ who pose any kind of threat to me. Let me fight with you. We will end the war before it has even begun."

Mavis was silent for a very long time. Her expression gave away nothing of her thought process – and of course it wouldn't. Her projection acted as she willed it to, and would replicate physical emotions only when she wished for it, unlike when she was truly alive. Her poker face was inherently perfect.

"Answer me this," she said, at last. "With your knowledge of the future, you could surely have given that overwhelming advantage you spoke of to your own empire. Why did you come to us instead?"

The idea of lying did not cross his mind. "There are two reasons for that. The first is that I believe assisting your side offers the highest chance of ending the war with minimal casualties. I believe that if you and the other Masters make me that promise, you will truly do all you can to keep it. If I took that petition to my friends in the empire, however, there is no guarantee that His Majesty will not override it with a contrary order of his own… especially if things start to go wrong again. This is the best way to protect both Fairy Tail and my friends."

To his surprise, she did not question his inclusion of her guild in that assertion. Instead, she prompted, "And the other reason?"

That was easy enough to answer.

 _He lied to me._

"I have seen what will happen if His Majesty obtains Fairy Heart," he said simply. "I will never let that future come to pass."

* * *

"Invel!" Ajeel called.

There were days on which Invel would have reprimanded his younger colleague for running down the palace corridors like a rebellious schoolboy, but today was not one of them. "What is it?"

Ajeel skidded to a halt and pressed a folded piece of paper into his hand. "Just got this from ATC. Don't know why no one thought to ask them until now."

There were, Invel thought, many reasons why none of the Twelve would make Air Traffic Control their first stop in the search for their wayward leader, including but not limited to August's overt disinterest in aerial combat of any kind. Then again, he was perfectly capable of flying – Ajeel had made sure of it – and he did have his own personal airship, as was his privilege as one of the Twelve, no matter how infrequently he used it. No, the real reason why no one had thought to check with ATC whether August had left the country in said airship was because it simply hadn't occurred to anyone that he might have done so.

Not on the eve of war. Not without telling anyone. It was unthinkable.

A tiny frown crossed Invel's face as he unfolded the paper. The expression gave away nothing on its own, but to anyone who knew him, that little slip of the Chief of Staff's control spoke volumes.

"This means nothing," he stated. "We cannot draw conclusions from this alone."

"I know!" Ajeel stepped back, throwing up his hands as if to emphasize how much he really, _really_ wasn't doing that. "Still… we should probably tell His Majesty, don't you think?"

"Invel! Ajeel!" The emperor in question was decidedly _not_ running in the palace corridors, but purposefulness seemed sewn into the robes which billowed around him as he approached. "Anything?"

Ajeel opened his mouth and then closed it again, deferring to Invel with a meaningful glance.

"No," answered the Chief of Staff, and his hands were somehow empty. "But, Your Majesty, we do need to leave-"

"I said an hour-"

"You've had two!" Invel interrupted, eyes flashing like an iceberg caught in the lighthouse's sweep. "Either authorize the invasion now or have our troops withdraw – you cannot delay any longer! If you want to postpone the invasion until after August has returned then _do_ it, that is your imperial prerogative, but we do not have the resources to hold our current position indefinitely! You must decide, Your Majesty, and you must do so _now._ "

This declaration earned Invel a dark look, which he took stoically. Loyalty was one thing, but there was little point in having advisors who shied away from painful truths, and they both understood that.

"I still think we should just go for it," Ajeel volunteered. On the surface, his unsolicited interruption may have seemed tactless, but it broke the tension nicely. Besides, His Majesty was both accustomed to and accepting of Ajeel's nature. "Let's face it, we don't need August to win. He'll show up at some point – probably just after we've taken the entire continent – and be annoyed that he missed all the action."

"He's integral to my strategy. I don't have time to rework it."

"You don't need to rework it," Invel pointed out patiently. "God Serena can handle the eastern approach on his own."

"God Serena is an arrogant fool who cannot be trusted to lead a guest into the state dining room, let alone an army! He will abandon us to pursue his own agenda the moment Acnologia appears – assuming he hasn't gotten himself killed in some inglorious act of hubris long before then!"

"We can always ask Jacob to keep an eye on him, and there have been no sightings of Acnologia yet. God Serena will-"

Their emperor stamped his foot hard enough to crack the marble. "I don't want God Serena to do it! I want August to do it!"

Silence followed this outburst, as Invel and Ajeel tried very hard not to exchange glances.

Delicately, Invel ventured, "So do we, Your Majesty, but it is not a prerequisite for victory. Regardless, if it is the most important thing to you, give the order for our forces to withdraw, and we will obey."

One long moment slipped through the deadlock; between icy blue-grey eyes dispassionate because the job demanded it and black wells overflowing with emotions Invel could not read, but thought he could guess at easily enough.

"No," came the final answer. "Give the order to begin the final approach. We'll attack tonight."

With that command, he whirled around and strode off. The aura of magic that flared around him like the rainbands of a hurricane dissuaded anyone from following him.

Not that either of them had any intention of doing so. Indeed, Ajeel had barely waited for their sovereign to get out of earshot before whispering, "You didn't tell him?"

"Do _you_ want to be the one to tell him?" Invel retorted.

He moved to the window, and after a moment, Ajeel followed. They watched as their beloved emperor crossed the lawns towards his waiting airship. It was a sight they had been hoping to see for several hours, yet the relief it should have brought was marred by the grass withering beneath his feet, the roses turning their once-pretty heads away from him, the trees twisting themselves into grotesque dead shapes at his passing.

Ajeel shuddered. "At least soon he'll have that stupid guild to take it out on, rather than the gardens."

Invel said nothing. He continued to stare at the departing airship long after Ajeel had gone to try and catch up with his own unit before the attack began.

The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that Ajeel had it wrong. It wasn't rage causing His Majesty's magic to lash out. It was hurt. He was upset, and unsettled, and alarmingly far from the resolute leader they needed right now…

In short, Invel thought it was the worst possible time for His Majesty to learn that, when asked by ATC for the predicted return date of his flight to Ishgar, August had said that he was never coming back.

* * *

In the end, August elected to meet Cana on his own terms, rather than risk coming face-to-face with her at a critical moment. As a prisoner in her guildhall, he wouldn't be able to avoid her for long. Besides, knowing how happy Mavis had been to get her living body back last time, he wanted to free her from her crystal prison as soon as possible.

Mavis frowned at his request to speak to Cana, but did not inquire further. After a few moments spent batting her ethereal hand ineffectually at the door handle, she sighed and simply phased through the wood, leaving him alone in Makarov's office. Soon after, the door swung open, and Mavis followed Cana back into the room.

She refrained from taking a seat as Mavis introduced them. Leaning up against the far wall instead, she regarded the guild's willing captive with mild suspicion and a fair dollop of hostility, albeit no more than anyone else would have expressed. As far as he was concerned, it was nowhere near enough.

She should despise him.

It shouldn't matter that this was their first meeting in this timeline. He felt certain that she should somehow _know;_ that some residual loathing should seep from one world to another. It wasn't right for her not to hate him. The fact that no one remained to accuse him of his crime didn't mean it hadn't happened.

He had killed her, because she'd had the audacity to love, and be loved by, her own father.

This was the second time they had met afterwards, not the first. He was expecting the guilt, and thus it should have been much easier to keep the mask of a perfect stranger in place. Yet there was one doubt that haunted his cyclical thoughts like a poltergeist, one which had not been there the first time: _would she still have loved her father, if he had tried to erase her and everything they had done together from history?_

Which brought with it a rather more pertinent question: did he still love _his_ father _?_

"Have we met?"

The brusque words sliced straight through his mental whirlpool, and he realized, belatedly, that he had been staring at her for several seconds.

"No," he said automatically, dropping his gaze, though not before he caught sight of Mavis's deepening frown.

"Only, you look like you've seen a ghost," Cana remarked. "Except there's an actual ghost here, and you're having no problems treating _her_ like a normal person, so I can only assume I must have done something to scare or upset you that I now can't remember…" She squinted at him. "Hmm, you don't look like the kind of person I usually end up owing a drink to. I suppose I could have been very, _very_ drunk at the time, though I'm not sure I can be held accountable in that case, and anyway, that would be on you for taking advantage of an inebriated young woman…"

"I'm sure it's nothing like that," Mavis interjected, and August knew she had guessed that something significant had happened between them in a future-that-wasn't. "Although I am curious myself as to why you wanted Cana here…"

"Alright," he responded, mentally gathering himself with the assistance of the change of subject. "For one, we need her to use Fairy Glitter to return you to your real body."

Mavis's surprise was almost palpable, though it was nothing compared to Cana's, as she rounded on the ghost and shouted, "That's possible? You should have told me months ago!"

"To be honest, I- I wasn't entirely sure it would work. I'm _still_ not convinced it's safe…"

"A twenty percent chance that your body might be dead anyway, and higher that trying will make Fairy Heart explode?" August asked wryly. "It'll work. It did last time."

Mavis glowered at him. "That's _cheating._ "

His smile quickly faded as he turned to address Cana directly. "And the second thing – do you know where Gildarts is? We're going to need him as soon as possible."

The face Cana pulled outdid Mavis's. "No clue. I haven't seen him for months. Been trying all afternoon to track him down using my cards, but… I got nothing."

"Do you foresee that being a problem?" Mavis asked.

"No," Cana huffed.

"Yes," August said quietly. "His absence was the main reason why we could move so freely the first time around, and why you spent almost the entire war reacting to our moves rather than making your own."

Mavis thought for a moment, sizing him up with unblinking eyes. It would take far more than an unprovable confession that he was from the future for her to trust him as she had before. In this matter, though, any assessment of the pros and cons would surely have to conclude that having Gildarts around would benefit the guild.

To Cana, she asked, "Do you think you would have more luck at divining his location with your cards if you were closer to him?"

A shrug. "Probably?"

"Right." Mavis turned briskly to the filing cabinet behind her and attempted to open a drawer, only to be foiled by her own intangibility. She shot Cana a pleading look. Trying not to smile, Cana retrieved the spare map of Ishgar for her and spread it across Makarov's desk.

"I can't believe I actually thought I would be able to help lead an army like this," Mavis muttered. "If we move my body to Tenrou Island too…" She shook her head in despair, before focussing on him once more. "Anyway. August, where and when did Gildarts appear last time?"

He closed his eyes and thought. It had been several months and two timelines ago, but the time gap itself wasn't the problem; it was seeing past-

- _NO PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING-_

-what had happened in between.

"Here." He touched a town in the south-east of Fiore, too small to be named on the map. "About twenty-four hours after the fighting began in earnest."

Cana marked the spot with her pen. Meanwhile, the First Master was busy running rapid calculations in her head. "Twenty-four hours, taking into account the travel limitations imposed by the national state of emergency… the furthest away he could have been when war broke out…" She traced a circle centred upon the town, which Cana duly preserved in ink. "And we can write off the semi-circle closest to the guildhall, under the assumption that he wouldn't have moved further away from us when he heard we were under attack."

Cana snatched up the map. "That gives us a much smaller area to search!"

She dashed out of the office shouting for Mest at the top of her voice, apparently forgetting, in her haste, that she wasn't supposed to be enthusiastic about seeing her father again. Immediately, Mavis followed, and he listened to her advising Cana to take Natsu or one of the other Dragon Slayers with her – ostensibly to help search, though undoubtedly for protection as well, in case his information was leading them into a remarkably obscure trap – before quickly reminding Cana to free her body before she went.

After that, the voices disappeared from outside the office. Either the members of Fairy Tail were content to leave him unattended with his magic bound, or they were simply too busy with their preparations to notice. August leaned back in the too-small wooden chair – well, it was of perfect size and uncomfortableness for an interrogation, which made him wonder why it had been in the office in the first place – and listened.

The guildhall was suffused with gentle noise. Even on the eve of war, there was a friendliness to it; a camaraderie not the least bit diminished by the knowledge that this might be the last chance they got to express it. He wondered what his own friends were doing right now. Had they noticed his absence? Once this was all over, would they be able to understand his actions?

The transition from an impulsive decision to switch sides to a genuine commitment to helping Fairy Tail hadn't hurt nearly as much as he had anticipated. And he thought that the main reason for that-

 _-sheer, black hate-_

-was currently re-entering the room.

Mavis's return was far from an instantaneous action. She had a living body once again, and she was making the most of it. She opened the door, walked through it, closed the door, and then proceeded to repeatedly open and slam it again until she felt that her dominance over that piece of furniture was re-established. That settled, she strode over to Makarov's desk and sat opposite August with far more satisfaction than the uncomfortable chair deserved.

Even though the broad smile she offered him was almost certainly an unavoidable – _physical_ – manifestation of her delight at getting her real body back, rather than any particular feeling of friendship towards him, it filled him with light all the same. Some part of him had always belonged here with her, and he wondered why he had never thought to visit her guild during their decades of peace.

Erza and Makarov eventually followed her in, both giving the now-stationary door a wary look as they entered.

"War has officially been declared by Alvarez," Makarov announced gravely. "And, as I'm sure our guest already knows, our lookouts have reported a significant number of imperial airships approaching the coast. Assuming they head straight for Magnolia without stopping…" He paused, and August nodded to confirm that that was indeed their plan. "Then they'll be here in the early hours of the morning."

Mavis leaned forwards, distracted briefly by her own ability to rest her elbows on the table, before she gathered her thoughts and said, "If there's any information you would like to share with us, now's your chance."

Ignoring the deeply mistrustful expressions the Seventh and Eighth Masters still bore – a response for which he could not blame them – August did so. "Ajeel leads the aerial unit. He _founded_ it, in part as a way of getting himself into any combat zones faster. It is very unlikely that any other member of the Twelve travels with him, so he is the only mage you need to watch out for. I would advise against fighting him in the air, where he has the advantage of numbers, experience, and technology."

Swallowing, he pressed forwards with the words he knew he had to say. "If you shoot him with your modified Jupiter Cannon, he will die. I… I would be grateful if you could bring down his ship manually and fight him on the ground. There is very little shielding on his ship. It should be easy for a Dragon Slayer-Exceed pair to swoop in and destroy his engines at close range, causing his ship to crash. Ajeel is very… straightforward. If you present him with an opponent straight away, he will make no attempt to regroup with the fleet or carry out his original mission."

"And for completeness," Erza said shortly, "if we did decide to engage him in battle upon the ground, what kind of magic does he use?"

There was a harshness to her voice, but it was a voluntary one – one that resonated with all the strength of her being, rather than merely the spite that remained. He realized then that there was every chance they already knew what magic Ajeel wielded. If Makarov's rescue had played out much the same as it had the first time round, they'd have escaped only by fighting him off.

Not that it mattered. He had no intention of lying, and his answer came back without hesitation.

"He uses Sand Magic at an exceptionally high level. Sandstorms will cut visibility and render ranged combatants all but impotent, as well as dealing constant damage and draining the moisture and strength from anyone who engages him in a physical fight… and that is simply from the passive effects of his magical aura at full strength."

He forced away his memories of teaching the young man, of correcting his stance, of streamlining the efficiency of his magic, of practically begging him to introduce some variation into his style and pick up a defensive trick or two… and some morbid part of him couldn't help wondering how Ajeel would feel, knowing that his mentor was sat amongst their enemies, plotting his-

 _-not realizing at first that the scorched shape he had just pushed away wasn't a piece of airship wreckage after all-_

-survival.

"It is my opinion that the best person to fight him would be Juvia," August continued, and his voice came out unwavering. "As her body is an infinite source of water, she will be immune to the withering effect of his magic. Furthermore, not being strictly solid, I doubt she will be affected by the sandstorms – and almost all his attacks are equally physical. I would also recommend sending Wendy, as wind manipulation is the most effective defence against his sandstorms."

At this, Erza half-rose out of her seat, sword springing into her hand. "If you think-"

Mavis raised her hand commandingly, and the younger Master fell silent at once, though her eyes still flashed as sharp as her blade. Mavis's own response, however, couldn't have been lighter if he had been offering advice on what she should pack for a picnic. "Thank you for your suggestions; we shall take them into consideration. Seventh, Eighth – with me, please."

She got to her feet, and her two successors did the same. Their obedience lasted only until they were out of the office, however, because the door to his makeshift cell had not yet swung closed when the sounds of them rounding furiously upon their recently restored First Master reached August's ears.

"First Master, I must object!" Makarov began hotly. "You haven't met these Alvarez mages. You don't know how strong they are – and nor do we, until we've fought them for real! Sending _Wendy and Juvia_ out as the first team to fight them would be foolish and irresponsible!"

"I concur," Erza seconded. "In all likelihood, this man is Zeref's agent and anyone we send into this fight will find themselves in a deadly trap. I refuse to subject Wendy to that. Let _me_ be the one to fight Ajeel-"

Then the door clicked shut, and the argument of the Masters faded into distant mumbling. August leaned back, exhaling heavily. He had done what he could. Ajeel's fate – and that of his entire mission – now lay in Mavis's hands.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _Thanks again to everyone who has followed, reviewed, or is reading this story! Special thanks for some particularly insightful reviews last week. (I can't believe the idea of Schrodinger's Zeref has never occurred to me before! Certain aspects of quantum mechanics really do provide great analogies to Zeref's behaviour in this fic, and although I can't really get into that yet without spoilers, reading that certainly made me smile!). I hope you all enjoyed this slightly calmer chapter to begin the next phase of the story! ~CS_


	8. Trust

**State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Eight: Trust**

Wendy was serving him tea.

It was hard to say whether she or August was least comfortable with this fact, given that his hands trembled almost as much in taking the proffered teacup as hers did in handing it over.

The young Dragon Slayer wasn't remotely afraid of him, of course. From the way her gaze never left the wobbling tea tray as she inched into the room, it was evident that her greatest fear was spilling tea all over Makarov's office. The intensity of her concentration put the stares of his interrogators to shame.

Spilt tea, however, was the least of August's concerns. He was powerless and surrounded by enemies, none of whom trusted him and most of whom wouldn't shed a tear if an unfortunate accident were to befall him in captivity. One of his closest friends was currently fighting the battle that had already killed him once, and the only thing that could stop history from repeating itself was the goodwill of three Masters who had no reason to help him. And at some point, His Majesty was going to find out about his defection, and then he would have to face up to the consequences he was still refusing to think about…

Most worrying of all, however, was the fact that Wendy was serving him tea.

And if she was here serving him tea, then she _wasn't_ out there fighting Ajeel, as he had recommended. No doubt that was why Makarov had asked the young girl to bring him refreshments, rather than any of the guild's experienced waiting staff – and why Juvia had walked past the ajar door in conversation with Makarov more than once. The old Master was making a point: _we don't trust you. We're not taking your advice._

Thus August sat in the office-turned-holding-cell, unable to do anything but worry… and wait for news of the battle.

He was supposed to be in control of this situation. That was what his defection had been about – taking the future into his own hands. Not sitting around and waiting to see if he had been able to change one little thing _._

A roar of noise alerted him to the away team's return. It soon quietened again, though not to the same level as before, and he knew something had changed.

To his surprise, they didn't keep him in suspense. Running footsteps reached his ears, and then the door blasted open with a speed that implied the newly tangible Mavis had completely forgotten to slow down for it – a mistake which the great solid desk was eager to correct. Unfazed, she bounced off, slammed her hands down on the table, and announced, "We captured him!"

His heart lurched. "Ajeel?"

"Yup! We're sticking him in the cells beneath the guildhall right now. He's out cold, but you can see him when he comes round, if you want. This time, we're upholding our principles until the end." She spun around, skirt and hair flaring out into a halo of gold brilliance, and then she clapped her hands together. "And that's regardless of any deal we may or may not have with you. It's because we're Fairy Tail, and not even victory is worth giving that up for."

Pausing, she considered this for a moment, and added, "That being said, your advice was most helpful in ending the fight without bloodshed."

"You completely ignored my advice!" he pointed out. "Wendy and Juvia remained in the guild!"

Mavis beamed at him, and it was magnificent. "Oh, I don't need you to come up with _strategies_ for us. That's _my_ job. But everything you said about Ajeel being a straightforward opponent who jumps head-first into battles made me think he probably wouldn't be on the lookout for a deception in his very first fight of the war…"

"A deception?"

"Yup!" She snapped her fingers and duplicates of Wendy and Juvia appeared in the room, glowing faintly.

His eyes widened. "You fought him with illusions?"

"And a pitfall trap!"

And wider still. "A… pitfall trap?"

"Yup! It was pretty dark in the field where we brought his airship down, and I figured that a mage who always dominates the environment with sandstorms probably wouldn't be used to other people using the environment against him, so he wouldn't expect my fake Juvia to lead him into a pre-dug pitfall trap. Especially not one with walls covered in Jutsu Shiki. _Anyone who falls into this hole will sleep for four hours,_ I think Freed said he'd written. The overwhelming sand magic your friend was throwing everywhere with no regard for the consequences concealed the trap's magical signature quite nicely."

"That's _brilliant._ "

Mavis beamed at him again.

"However!" she resumed, bouncing on the soles of her feet; her excitement was far too great to be contained within a stationary physical body. "While observing the fake battle, I noticed Ajeel was unsurprised that his sand wasn't affecting illusion-Juvia! Which makes me think that he knew real-Juvia would have been equally unaffected, as you said, and thus that she was a genuinely good recommendation for the fight. Similarly, he looked really annoyed to see illusion-Wendy arrive, which suggests that air manipulation is a known weakness of his magic. Therefore I am inclined to believe that your advice was sound, and more importantly, given to us in good faith."

Taken aback by the sudden admission of trust, he still had not found his voice when Mavis spoke again.

"And, I also wanted to say… thank you. Because I have my body and my magic back, I was able to fight on the front lines for my guild. I… I do not know if I would have had the courage to break out of the crystal myself, had you not reassured me."

"You would have done," he insisted, and he meant it. After all, last time, last _future,_ it had been all her own decision.

A little smile suggested she had heard the subtext loud and clear. "Even so, before you arrived, there had been talk of moving my body to Tenrou Island to protect it, and… well, I'm so glad that didn't happen. I don't want to just be protected – not when this entire conflict is my fault. My continued existence has already brought so much harm to my guild, and I'm happy I was able to start repaying them for that today. Whatever else happens, I will always be grateful to you for giving me that opportunity."

"That's…" he tried, and then gave up. "You're welcome."

"Seventh and Eighth still have their reservations, naturally, but you have my trust," she informed him. With a guilty glance at the magic-suppressing handcuffs, she added, "Though, I can't take those off you just yet. I was outvoted."

"It's fine," he assured her. "I understand."

"Let me say this instead." Mavis gave another joyful spin, placed her hands on his shoulders, and fixed him with a gaze so sparkling-bright that it put the constellations they had once flown beneath to shame. "Welcome to Fairy Tail."

And he knew he had lived through ninety-four years and two unspeakable futures just to see that smile.

 _This,_ he resolved. _This is the future I'm going to keep._

* * *

Ajeel had nothing to say to him.

The cells beneath Fairy Tail's guildhall were nothing like the torture chambers that had spawned from the darkness at Mercurius's heart. The spartan design was a blessing in disguise, because the lack of any furniture went hand-in-hand with an absence of torture devices. A single chain connected the magic-suppressing handcuffs Ajeel wore to the wall, allowing him freedom of movement within the cell, had he wanted to do anything more than turn his back to August as he approached. Even that juvenile insult was a luxury denied to the Erza who had been stripped naked and strung from the ceiling. At least Ajeel was fully-clothed and uninjured, apart from his wounded pride.

This wasn't so much a place of punishment as a holding cell, born of the desire to end the war as swiftly and humanely as possible. The torture chambers of that first and hateful future had come from all that remained once that desire had been annihilated.

Yet Ajeel did not understand that. He could communicate disdain by turning his back on his former mentor, unaware that any movement of his should have been blocked by six feet of soil. He could spit at August's approach without appreciating that such venom was possible only because his captors had kindly provided him with water. He loathed his imprisonment, because he saw only that his freedom had been taken away, not that his very life had been given back.

After waiting far too long for an acknowledgement he should have known wasn't coming, August said, "I have never known you have nothing to say, Ajeel."

"Figured it'd be you," he spat, without turning round. "The illusions, that was low. Don't know why I expected anything else from these cowards. But picking two people whose magic was the perfect counter to mine? That's you all over."

He lashed out suddenly, and his heel struck the wall a jarring blow. August flinched at the sound.

"Bet you got a good laugh out of that, didn't you?" Ajeel snarled. "How long have you been Fairy Tail's bitch?"

August closed his eyes briefly. "It's not like that."

"Oh? There's no point pretending you're being forced to act against your will. You left Alvarez with no intention of coming back – and I'm not the only one who knows that. His Majesty is going to be so pissed when he finds out."

"He isn't already?" August wondered, so perplexed by the implication that he didn't even reprimand the other for his language.

"He's more moody than anything else. Unpredictable. One minute he's in command and reassuring everyone who'll listen that you'll be here any moment to join the eastern approach… and the next he's locked himself in his cabin, won't come out, won't even give any orders, until you're back."

For a moment, August was speechless. That wasn't-

 _-you should go ahead and die-_

-how things were supposed to go.

"He'll be devastated when he finds out what you've been doing," Ajeel continued. "All those times he delayed giving the order to invade, believing you'd come back… and all the while, you've been feeding information to that illusionist whore and her-"

" _Do not speak of her like that!"_

Had August's magic not been bound, that would have been the end of the guildhall and everyone inside it. In its absence, the only result of his fury was a single lazy eye turned towards him – an eye that wasn't interested in insulting Mavis so much as seeing how August would react to it.

"Funny," Ajeel remarked. "I remember a time when you were that protective of His Majesty… or was that all a lie?"

"It was no lie," he ground out, reining in his temper with an effort. "It's more complicated than that."

"Yeah, right."

"It's the truth. I've come back to this time from the future. Everything I do is in aid of preventing the catastrophe I saw there."

"So, the first thing you did was tell your friends and colleagues, so that we could work out together what we were going to do about it?" Ajeel challenged.

"I…"

August's objection faltered beneath that blow. In truth, that hadn't occurred to him at all. He had been so hurt by his father's betrayal that he had run straight to his mother's side, thinking nothing of those he was leaving behind except as a checklist of lives to save.

As if Ajeel had heard his thoughts, he continued, "No, of course not. Because that's only an obvious solution if we and His Majesty were people you had ever genuinely cared about-"

"You would have died today!" August roared. "If I hadn't acted when I did, I would be having this conversation with your gravestone!"

Silence.

A clink of chains, and a voice hard enough to cut straight through them.

"And would I have got a proper battle out of it? Would I have been able to fight the enemies of His Majesty and have it mean something? Would my death have brought him closer to his goals? Because that would have been far better than _this!"_

August slammed his hand against the cell bars. "His Majesty does not want you to die for him. He wants to erase everything you've done; everything you are; every sign that you even existed! He will take away this present world, and our whole nation will cease to exist! Your sacrifice will mean nothing!"

Slowly, Ajeel got to his feet. From either side of those bars, the two prisoners stared at each other; desperation and quiet hate.

"He gave me _everything_. He was the one who saw the potential in me, when Grandpa wouldn't look beyond my poor grades. He was the one who gave me the chance to serve him as a mage, rather than an advisor, like the rest of my family. I know you only took me on as a student because he asked you to! He made a place for me! For once in my life, I had something to fight _for,_ rather than against!"

A memory rose, unbidden, of the lonely immortal who had reached out to the abandoned boy.

"I know all that," August murmured. "I know… he's…"

The words stuck in his throat.

"You may know it," Ajeel said coldly. "But you don't _understand_ it, do you? Everything I am, I am because of His Majesty. My life is his. If he wants it back, _he can have it._ "

* * *

"He'll come round."

August started; he had been certain he was alone in the corridor. There was no way he would have permitted himself a moment to regain his composure before returning to the main hall otherwise.

But that voice had been Erza's, and when he spun round, chain pulling tight against his wrists as he automatically tried to enter a defensive stance, the warrior-mage was indeed leaning up against the wall. One hand rested on her sword's hilt, but she gave no sign she had seen his reaction.

"He is embarrassed because of how he lost," Erza continued. "That's all. You saved his life; he'll come round eventually. Maybe it'll take a week, or maybe a year, but one day he'll understand that you have to live for those you love, not die for them."

"You were listening?" he demanded.

Erza met the accusation squarely, not the least bit intimidated by him. "The First Master may trust you, but I don't. Not enough to let you meet our prisoners unsupervised, at least."

"That conversation was private!"

"The right to privacy is one you have not yet earnt in this guild," she informed him coolly, before moving on, as if the matter was closed. "The First Master is waiting for you in the main hall. Mest has returned with Cana and Gildarts."

"…Alright," he conceded.

As he made to leave, he was surprised to find a gauntleted hand resting briefly upon his shoulder. "Give him time," Erza murmured, and then she brushed past him and strode down the corridor.

He hesitated for longer than he should have done before following her. He felt betrayed by her actions, and also strangely touched. Yet, at the same time, she hadn't understood at all. Ajeel could hate him for the rest of his life, and as long as that life was a long and satisfying one, August wouldn't care.

 _Everything I am, I am because of His Majesty,_ Ajeel had said. _He gave me everything._

And there had been a time – before time itself had changed – when August would have made the same declaration and thought nothing of it.

But as he entered the guild's main hall, and saw Mavis engaged in enthusiastic conversation with the others, he knew it _wasn't_ everything, not any more. No matter what happened, some part of him would always belong right here.

* * *

"Pull the other one," Cana said flatly.

"I'm serious!" Mavis protested. Admittedly, her fits of giggles weren't helping her case any more than Gildarts's dumbfounded expression, or Erza's bemusement.

"No," Cana stated. "I refuse to believe that there are _any_ circumstances under which Macao and Wakaba could have taken out one of the Spriggan Twelve!"

It was at that moment that Mavis caught August's eye, and beckoned him over to join the discussion. As reluctant as he was to approach Cana and Gildarts, he couldn't turn down the chance to spend even just a minute more with her. And when she turned that contagious grin towards him alone, he didn't regret it for a moment.

"We were just talking about Macao and Wakaba's resounding victory," she explained to him.

"Ah, the plan worked, did it?"

"Perfectly."

"You're lying," Cana insisted. "You're both in it together."

"Care to explain?" Mavis invited August, with a sweet smile.

"Neinhart," he complied. "His magic grants a temporary physical form to the spirits of his opponent's deceased enemies. The stronger the personal grudge they bear against the target, or that the target bears against them, the more powerful his manifestations are."

Mavis resumed, "So, by sending two people to fight him who, uh…"

"Haven't spent long enough off their arses to make any serious enemies?" Cana filled in.

"Yeah, that… the theory was that it would render Neinhart almost powerless. He would still be able to use any spirit with a general grudge against Fairy Tail to fight them, but his manifestations would be far weaker against those two than against someone they'd known and fought in life."

"Weak enough for even those two to win?" Cana demanded.

Cheerfully, Mavis answered, "Well, Mira was there as backup, but Macao's report stresses that her actual role was more of a cheerleading one."

Cana rolled her eyes. "I bet it does…"

"Well, with our illustrious Fourth Master on the case, I'm not entirely sure why you called _me_ back here," Gildarts said amiably.

"Ha ha," Cana deadpanned. "What's the plan, First?"

By way of an answer, Mavis led them over to the table they had appropriated for their strategy meetings. The guildhall was almost empty. Apart from their group – Mavis, Erza, Makarov, Gildarts, Cana and August – there was only one other group present: Warren's team, which was providing communication between their fighting units all across Fiore.

Warren's network of telepathy magic fused with radio technology covered almost all of the country, near-undetectable to their opponents while simultaneously letting them listen in to Alvarez's transmissions. August had deduced enough of this during the first war to cobble together a makeshift counter, but it wasn't until the fighting was over and they had begun appropriating the enemy's technology that he had come to appreciate just how advanced Fairy Tail's communications had been compared to their own.

Yesterday evening, after the successful capture of Ajeel but before he had awoken, August had sat down with the three Masters – all of whom now knew about the time travel – and talked them through the events of the first war in as much detail as he could remember. Together, they had worked out how best to arrange their own forces in light of this. Rather than the mostly random distribution of mages Fairy Tail had gone with last time, the intelligence August provided allowed them to counter their opponents' magic and produce favourable matchups for their team.

Most of the Fairy Tail teams were currently out fighting. Macao's report had been the only one to come through so far, but the outlook was promising. Careful planning, backed up by the superior information network which August was no longer present to interfere with, had put the invading army on the back foot from the start.

There were some opponents, however, for whom all the careful planning in the world wouldn't be enough. That was the reason for their current briefing.

As they gathered around the map, the sombre mood returned. August knew he was avoiding eye contact with Cana and Gildarts, and he suspected they had both noticed, but if appearing rude was what it took to push his emotions aside and focus on the task at hand, that was what he would do. Mavis needed him.

"Excluding His Majesty," he began, "there were three mages last time who remained undefeated at the end of the war, having won every battle in which they participated. I was one. Irene was the second, but we have a plan for her."

He glanced at Mavis, who gave him the tiniest of nods.

"And the third was a man no doubt familiar to you all – God Serena, formerly a Wizard Saint of Ishgar. He may be a pompous fool, but do not let that deceive you. His reputation as a mage is well-deserved. He wields eight types of Dragon Slayer magic at once, each of which covers for the weaknesses of the others – leaving him with no flaws we can exploit, as we are doing for our other opponents. Surpassing him in raw power is the only way to beat him."

"Sounds like a job for Macao, then," Gildarts remarked, earning himself an elbow in the ribs from Cana. "Alright, alright. That's why you brought me back, isn't it?"

"Only reason why we'd ever have considered it," Cana grumbled.

"Zeref's original plan had God Serena splitting from his companions here," Mavis interjected, tapping the map. "We should aim to intercept him somewhere between there and the guildhall."

"Sure thing," Gildarts agreed, getting to his feet at once.

"Wait!" August requested. As everyone turned to look at him, he set his bound hands on the table with an audible clink of metal and looked directly at Mavis. "Let me go too."

Concern etched creases around those beautiful emerald eyes, but it was Gildarts who spoke first. "Nah. I can handle this on my own."

"With all possible respect," August retorted, "you _can't._ He is more powerful than you. If you go after him alone, he'll kill you."

"He won't be alone," Cana pointed out. "I'll be there too. Obviously."

"No!" It was Gildarts's turn to raise an objection. "Cana, you're staying here."

Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "What, in the guildhall, where it's safe?"

"There's a whole army out there! There are plenty of enemies you can fight _without_ having to challenge the strongest mage in Ishgar to a duel!"

"Oh, but it's fine when _you_ do it?"

As the argument escalated, Erza shot August an exasperated glare: _look at what you've started._ He just shook his head. "It's a moot point. Even together, they won't win. The only way to guarantee victory is for Gildarts and myself to fight him together."

"No," Erza told him.

"Please. I want to help you!"

"Maybe you do," Makarov spoke up quietly. "Or maybe you want to run back to Zeref with all the inside information you've picked up from our guildhall."

"I'm never going back to him!" August snapped, startled by the accusation coming so soon after Mavis's declaration of trust; after Erza's reluctant empathy.

At least Erza had the decency to look guilty as she explained. "I'm sorry, but we have to take all possibilities into account, including the likelihood that your presence here is part of Zeref's scheme. We are dealing with a man who engineered the birth of an entire empire; a long-term double-agent plot is well within the realms of possibility. The safest option for our guild hasn't changed – your magic remains bound until the war is over."

"The war will not end until God Serena is beaten, and that won't happen without me!"

"I can beat him," Gildarts interrupted, more than a little disgruntled by the suggestion that he wouldn't be enough on his own. "At least give me a chance!"

Makarov nodded. "I agree. Let's see what Gildarts can do before we resort to extreme measures."

August's grip tightened around the edge of the table. Maybe Gildarts _could_ win. Maybe he should have more trust in his mother's guild. Maybe he should be grateful that they were listening to him at all, rather than angry that they would not trust him fully.

None of that reasoning, however, could break through the singular certainty-

 _-NO PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING-_

-that he had destroyed their family once, and he would not risk letting it come to pass again.

He turned instead to Mavis, holding that intense emerald gaze with one only a shade darker, and he prayed that the bond formed when she'd opened her heart to him on the flight to Alvarez had somehow endured the deconstruction of the future…

"I trust him," Mavis decided. "I think we should let him go with Gildarts."

He gave a tremulous nod, rapidly blinking away the tears he did not want to explain.

Makarov gave a sigh. "Then the deciding vote is yours, Erza."

The Seventh Master of Fairy Tail, once the Seventh and Ninth, who had bequeathed the guild's legacy to him when he had thought that all was lost, considered him for an eternity.

"No," she said, at last. "I do not feel comfortable returning our prisoner's magic to him right now." To Gildarts, she asked, "Will you go on your own?"

"I would've been there five minutes ago if you lot could make your mind up!"

And as Cana's voice piped up in objection once more, August closed his eyes and sank back into the chair. His shoulders sagged beneath the weight of the burden he had taken upon himself. Saving everyone had always been a long shot, he had known that, but some part of him – the part that he now realized had always belonged in his mother's guild – had dared to hope anyway, for the simple reason that _she_ had always dared to hope. She had trusted him despite the reasonable doubts of the other Masters; she had loved Zeref until the very end.

He should have known better. He hadn't grown up in her guild; he shouldn't have let his short time here hamper his judgement. He should have accepted that ending the war with no casualties at all was an impossible goal.

But if there was one more person he could have protected, just one… he thought that there was very little he wouldn't give to save the one who was so loved by his daughter.

* * *

"Hey."

August glanced up. It was the first time he had registered an attempt to draw his attention, but judging by the annoyed snap circling beneath the tone of the word, it was by no means the first attempt made. When he recognized Cana lurking in the doorway, he flinched again. Her eyes narrowed at this, but she shook it off in a flurry of raven locks and stepped into the room.

He was back in Makarov's office, Erza having vetoed the suggestion that he be sent to the underground cells with Ajeel and the recently incarcerated Neinhart. The three Masters were too busy to pay him much heed. Erza had gone to join the fight; Makarov and Mavis remained to observe the situation as generals and strategists. Bereft of news from the ongoing battles, August could do nothing but sit and think about all the things he could have done differently. He had been considering only this timeline at first, but as Cana approached, his mistakes in all the others burst through the surface at once.

"Has this happened before?" she asked bluntly.

"What?"

She folded her arms in annoyance at his lack of concentration. "Did they fight last time? God Serena and my dad?"

"No. They didn't meet the first time round."

"But you're still sure he's going to die?"

"I… I know he stands more of a chance than anyone else from your guild, but I do not think it will be enough."

With the office door half-closed, the sounds of command from the guildhall proper were strangely muted. He wished she would go away and leave him to reflect upon his mistakes. She did not.

"Look," Cana began harshly, perching on the table beside him. The added elevation allowed her to look down at him with an eerily imposing expression. "I know you've got a problem with me. I know you're our enemy, and that if Erza knew I was here talking to you, she'd ban me from the bar for life. She said she believes you mean well, but that talking to your captured friend has shaken your resolve."

"It's not-"

"To be honest," she interrupted, "I don't care about any of that. It's not that I trust you, but that there's nothing you can do to me that would be worse than letting that traitorous Wizard Saint kill my dad."

She handed him a tarot card. Rather than a familiar image from the Major Arcana, it contained a cartoonish drawing of Gildarts waving its arms frantically. As if that wasn't clear enough, four balloon letters above the image flashed the word HELP in a cascade of colours.

"Can you help him?"

"Yes." The answer came out before he could stop it. "My airship is hidden at the edge of town. Erza and the others don't know about it. If we take that, we should be able to catch up with him in time. But the Masters won't allow-"

"I don't care."

And with that, she pulled from her bag a key that he was certain should have been in Makarov's pocket. Her hand was shaking. It took two attempts for her to insert it into the lock upon his handcuffs and even that wasn't long enough for him to process what she was doing. He whispered, "Why?"

She ignored the question. "If you're going to betray us to Zeref, please wait until after my dad is back home."

The cuffs snapped open. His connection to his magic blazed back to life. Even he had to close his eyes against the sudden rush of power. He sensed more than saw Cana flinching away from him, a grimace twisting across her face as she realized for the first time how great a mistake defying Makarov and Erza might have been…

But even when they'd fought, she hadn't been afraid of him, and now she seized his wrist and wrenched him upright. "Come on, help me, you've got to," she insisted, as if she could override any treacherous intentions he may have been hiding with the force of her will alone.

Of course, he wasn't hiding anything of the sort. In that moment, there was nothing he wanted more than to protect Cana and her father… and to right the wrong whose shadow he had lived in since he had first stepped back in time.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I think this chapter has probably answered the question of whether or not I'm going to write the whole Alvarez arc. If it had been a shorter arc I might have considered it, but there's just too much of it, and very little of it is directly relevant to August even in this timeline. Most of it will happen off-screen during the next chapter, while August is off with Cana, which is a much more important encounter for this story. I cannot believe how much work it has taken just to get those two into a chapter together... Anyway, thanks as always for reading/following/reviewing this fic so far! ~CS_


	9. Father and Daughter

**State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **C **hapter Nine: Father and Daughter****

"Can't this ship go any faster?" Cana demanded.

Two alarms August had silenced with blasts of magic, one dial that had shaken itself loose from the dashboard, and a veritable firework display of warning lights all testified to the fact that the airship was flying far faster than it ought to have been, but he couldn't fault her for the sentiment. "I'm doing all I can, I assure you."

Cana grumbled something unintelligible, but fell silent. She sat in the co-pilot's seat, watching his every move with judgemental eyes. Unlike when Mavis had been his passenger, back in the second future-that-wouldn't-be, he did not have to warn Cana not to touch anything. Nothing as trivial as technology could interest her right now. One of her hands gripped the cartoon-Gildarts card – and was it his imagination, or were its arms moving more frantically now? – while the other rested upon the neck of an amber bottle.

She unscrewed the top of this in an effortless one-handed manoeuvre, releasing a pungent aroma to jab at his eyes and sandpaper his throat. "Want a drink?"

He shook his head tersely, too much on his mind to make more than a token attempt at civility. "We're flying towards the most dangerous battle of our lives, and you want to _drink?"_

"We're flying towards the most dangerous battle of our lives, and you _don't?"_ Cana retorted.

"Put it away. I'm trying to pilot the ship."

To his surprise, she screwed the lid back on without touching a drop herself and rested her chin on it pensively. It occurred to him, then, that he had never seen her drink. He knew her reputation for it – and for it to appear in the intelligence reports of an enemy nation, it had to be one hell of a reputation – but not in any of the past futures, nor since his defection to Fairy Tail in this one, had she even been tipsy. He wondered if the stories were wrong… or if the stories were right, and it was the whole world that was wrong.

"Just for the record," Cana spoke up suddenly, "I appreciate you helping me, and everything, but I don't think it's very nice of you to hold a grudge against me for something I haven't done yet."

"I beg your pardon?"

"That's why you're so uncomfortable around me, isn't it? You know me, but I've never met you before. So, obviously I did something to you in the future, and you're still upset about it – which is completely unfair, because I haven't even done it yet. And I might not do it at all. Probably won't do it, actually, if you just tell me what it is rather than being moody and avoiding eye contact."

"It's not like… You didn't do anything," he mumbled.

To his dismay, this only intrigued her further. "Oh? Then did _you_ perchance do something to _me?"_

He said nothing. How could he?

"What did you do?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Yeah, but I _do_ want to talk about it. Since we're on this mission together anyway, don't you think we should get it out of the way now, rather than risk it coming back to bite us in the middle of combat or something?"

It was a surprisingly sensible suggestion from the sober alcoholic, but-

 _-NO PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING-_

-that was nothing compared to how much he didn't want to give those memories life.

Not at all disheartened, Cana shrugged. "Okay, fine. We'll make a game of it. Did you… force me to marry you as part of Fairy Tail's terms of surrender?"

The airship plunged several feet as August hit completely the wrong lever. "What? No!"

"Oh. One shot for me."

"What are you playing at?" he half-shouted.

Cana paused in trying to unscrew the bottle with her teeth to frown at him. Slowly, as if to a child, she explained, "That's the game. I'm going to guess what you did to me, and every time I get it wrong, I take a shot. When I get it right, you have to drink what's left in the bottle."

"No, I mean – why do you care so much? Can't we just drop the matter?"

"No. Did you pass a law banning alco-?"

"I killed you!" he burst out.

Cana blinked at him. "What, is that all? From how you were acting, I thought it was something _really_ bad!"

"What could be worse than me _killing_ you?"

She looked him up and down. "Definitely the marriage thing."

"Cana!" Desperation turned his voice to a shriek, yet it bounced off her without harm.

"We were at war, weren't we? That's not surprising at all, especially if people were being slaughtered on both sides. It would be weirder if you _hadn't_ killed me."

"That's… it wasn't like that. If it was just part of the war, I could perhaps come to terms with it, but… that's not why I…"

"Oh, I see. You killed me to get to my dad, didn't you?"

He shook his head, half-convinced that this was all a hallucination. Surely it was too surreal to be anything else. "That was part of it, at first. I wanted to see how he'd react to you… to you being hurt." Still he reached for euphemisms; still he danced around the subject. "But in the end, I…"

"Spit it out," she commanded. "I can guarantee that I'll be more upset if you _don't_ tell me."

"I hated that you loved him," he said hollowly. "I hated that he loved you back. I killed you so that you couldn't, any more."

After a full five seconds of staring, Cana threw her head back and laughed.

Horrified, uncertain, he wanted to be anywhere but here, and only Ajeel's ingrained instructions kept his hands fixed to the controls. "Why… why are you laughing?"

"That's great! I don't think I've ever had an enemy who wanted to kill me for _me_ before! I mean, there've been loads of enemies who wanted to kill me because I was part of Fairy Tail, like Phantom Lord or Tartaros, and then Bluenote tried to kill me because I got the magic he wanted through sheer fluke, but I think you're the first who wanted me dead because of something I personally did!"

Leaning back, she gave the spurned warning lights overhead a satisfied grin. "I'm flattered. It's usually only Natsu and Erza who get enemies with a personal grudge."

"I… I don't understand. Why aren't you angry? Or afraid? Or upset? Or…"

"You remember what I said like five minutes ago about not wanting to be blamed for something I haven't done yet? That works both ways. You haven't killed me, _this_ me, so I've got no reason to be angry with you."

"It doesn't work like that."

"Sure it does. Besides, you obviously feel awkward about it, so you're not exactly rushing to do it again, are you?"

"No, but…" Stubbornly, he insisted, "It doesn't change the fact that I've done it once."

"But that doesn't matter to me. The only person who cares about it is _you_. And since the guilt from the first time round is clearly causing you to help me on my rescue mission _this_ time round – well, you've learnt from your mistake and used it to make a better future, haven't you? As far as I'm concerned, you've got a lot of things going for you in this timeline. Not enough to make me reconsider the arranged marriage, but still."

Then she paused, and gave the still-unopened bottle in her hand a quizzical look. "Huh. I don't usually get this philosophical until the bottom of my third pint. Don't know what's got into me today."

They flew on in silence for a while, punctuated only by the control panel's increasingly creative attempts to persuade them to slow down. Cana had taken to staring at the card in her hand. Although the word HELP was still cycling through enough colours to put the bridge's warning array to shame, the cartoon-Gildarts had stopped waving his arms for attention, and August didn't have the heart to ask what it meant.

"Say," Cana ventured, in a voice only half as carefree as before. "What did my dad do, when I died?"

"He…"

But he faltered after one word. He hated the way his mind stalled every time it reached the subject. If he'd had his wits about him, he'd have lied and said Gildarts hadn't been present, but he had already delayed for too long.

"You can tell me." She nudged him with the bottle, a casual gesture that did not belong in the conversation she wanted. "I bet he got really mad, didn't he? He's always overprotective like that. And then he expects me to be fine with him dashing off to fight evil Wizard Saints on his own, the hypocrite…"

August didn't want to remember that day. He'd have given anything not to. Yet the mere fact that Cana was in his airship assured him that there were some things from which he could not run, and he was no more able to stop those memories than he had been able to stop his actions back then.

He remembered how unexpectedly yielding her neck had felt within his grip, for so resilient a mage.

He remembered how the man who thought nothing of rushing into danger had fallen to his knees the instant his daughter's life had been the one at stake.

How he had begged-

 _-NO PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING-_

 _-no one will ever do that for me-_

-and how she'd been dead before he had consciously willed for her to die.

Magic born of hatred had proven far more powerful than that of love.

Her father had watched; watched _and_ understood. Because the simple truth was that nothing he could do now would ever be enough. Even if he won the war singlehandedly, she was gone forever.

And it had broken him.

"Yes," August lied. "He fought like a man possessed to try and avenge you."

Still he could not stop the flood of memories-

 _-the once-mighty mage sobbing on his knees-_

"I have never fought a more dangerous opponent."

 _-screaming and screaming in a chorus of futile grief, heedless to the enemy's presence, heedless to the danger, just screaming for her to come back-_

"Had I not fled, I am sure I would have died that day."

 _-the pity and revulsion he had felt in equal measure, until not even he could bring himself to finish his opponent, and he had turned and walked away._

"I do not know what became of him after that, but I do not think that anyone less than His Majesty would have been capable of bringing him down."

"Figures," Cana said, with the smallest twitch of her lips. "And… thanks for answering my questions, I guess."

But all he could say was, "I'm sorry."

She waved the hand containing the bottle. "I already told you, I don't care, so stop going on about it already."

He did not have to agree with her to fall silent at her request.

"Although," she added, as an afterthought, "Why _were_ you so angry at me just for loving my-"

 _KABOOM._

An eruption of power huge enough to short out the ship's magic-detectors cut into their conversation.

At first neither of them could see the source with their eyes, and then they could; August slammed the engines into reverse and they complied with a wail that would have got him banned from touching an airship for a week had Ajeel been around to hear it. The sudden deceleration flung them forwards, and by the time the dizziness had passed, the ship had slowed down enough to make out what was going on below.

They were hovering over a wasteland. There wasn't supposed to be a wasteland in this part of Fiore, and August might have worried that their headlong flight had taken them in entirely the wrong direction had he not already seen Gildarts's power first-hand. The mage himself had fallen to one knee, but was striving to reclaim his footing. The right side of his shirt was stained black and red in an eerie arcane swirl. An aura of power crackled around him, distorting gravity even at this distance. It was every bit as fearsome as the presence belonging to the man who watched, amused, as Gildarts climbed back to his feet.

"That's God Serena," August reported grimly. "I'll jump down and engage him. I've already initiated the auto-landing procedure so all you have to do is- Cana?"

That was when he realized he was giving his instructions to a bottle of liquor.

Cana was no longer in the bridge. In fact, if he had correctly identified that blur of motion in the corner of his vision, she was currently throwing herself over the railings of the main deck to drop into the fight herself.

Cursing, August focussed on getting the airship down to the ground as quickly as possible. It couldn't have taken him more than thirty seconds, but each one felt a lifetime – or, at least long enough for one or both of their lives to end. By the time he made it to the barren battlefield, Cana and Gildarts were already engaged in a shouting match that his instincts immediately warned him he wanted no part of.

Something else flashed across his senses too: real, physical, imminent danger. As much as he wanted to run over and make sure Cana and Gildarts were safe, he found himself slowing down. This wasn't God Serena's magic, but God Serena was supposed to be alone…

Why _was_ he expecting God Serena to be alone? His Majesty's original plan had involved three of them – the former Wizard Saint, Jacob, and August himself – approaching from the east and diverging at the point he'd indicated to the Fairy Tail Masters, but the first time round he had privately been informed by His Majesty to remain close to God Serena in case the Ishgar-born mage showed signs of rebellion. And if August himself wasn't there to carry out that order, might His Majesty not have given it to another?

August slammed the butt of his staff into the scorched earth. A pulse of magic burst forth, harmless to physical objects – had there been any left in this disaster zone – but disintegrating all shaped magic it encountered. Sure enough, a figure shimmered into existence between him and the ongoing battle.

To his surprise, Jacob, the Alvarez Empire's most unusual assassin, did not immediately attack upon losing his cover. He regarded his former ally with a strange look in his eye. It took August far too long to identify it as a grave sadness, for he had never thought he'd see it upon the face of his easy-going comrade, let alone turned toward him.

"It's true, then?" Jacob asked, though the rhetorical question was little more than a formality. "You really have turned traitor."

"You have my word that I will explain everything to you, in time," August replied steadily, raising his staff. It was nothing more than a twisted length of wood, yet the mere fact that he was holding it made it seem like a deadly weapon. "But right now, I need you to get out of the way."

"I can't do that. I am still loyal to His Majesty, even if that puts you and I at odds."

August's grip tightened around his staff – a gesture not missed by the experienced assassin.

"His Majesty still refuses to believe it," Jacob continued. "Even when the vanguard arrived and it became clear that Fairy Tail's forces were prepared for our every move… even when the Twelve found themselves facing impossible matchups that only you could have devised… still he insisted upon more and more extravagant explanations to avoid blaming you. I do not look forward to having to tell him the truth."

August closed his eyes for a long moment. "Please stand aside, Jacob. I don't want to fight you."

"Nor I you. I know all too well how such a battle will end. But I won't stand by and let you aid the enemies of the empire."

August hesitated, and everything went white.

The sky, the horizon, the battered earth beneath – all were gone, leaving him floating in a featureless white space. A faint buzzing in his ears offered the only proof that he had ever had five senses.

He had never been on the receiving end of this magic before, and there was a part of him which found it fascinating, even as he partially released the restraints on his own power and let it suffuse the whiteness. In an instant, the whole of the non-existent space was under his control. The magic abandoned its former master and came rushing at his command, and he wasted no time in flinging it into reverse.

The nothing-space spat him back into reality. He skidded along the battlefield with his free hand touching the ground. Before he had even come to a halt, he was swinging his staff into place, and the knife that had been reaching too predictably for his neck clattered harmlessly against the block. Shifting his weight effortlessly, he kicked Jacob away before the assassin could strike again.

More and more magic flooded into him, changing him; stripping away the limitations of his body. In physical combat, aided by that divine gift, he easily overpowered his fellow member of the Twelve. Within seconds, he had pushed Jacob back, severely bruising his shoulder and hip if not damaging both more seriously.

The assassin pulled away from him and vanished – dropping like a stone from sight and sound and touch. But his magic still called out to August, as magic always did; he asked Jacob's glamour to unweave and it did so at once. One final strike knocked the assassin out cold, crumpled at the feet of the one he had once considered his leader.

That would do for now. He could explain everything once Jacob was safely imprisoned with the others. Whether or not he would take the news any better than Ajeel – well, that had no bearing on what he had to do right now.

Turning away from his fallen opponent, he hurtled towards the _other_ battle going on, arriving at the perfect moment to throw himself between a fiery purge and the two Fairy Tail mages. Dragonfire licked at his raised arm and was instantly doused by his magic. At his silent command, it rekindled itself, this time entirely under his control, and a flick of his wrist sent the gale of flames surging back towards its original caster. God Serena switched aspects to counter with a torrent of water, but the point had been made.

"Ah, the cavalry has arrived!" God Serena proclaimed, sweeping his arms in a grandiose gesture. "I've been looking forward to-"

"You!" Gildarts's startled exclamation cut the ex-Wizard Saint off mid-speech. God Serena was doubly dismayed to realize that the interruption wasn't even in acknowledgement of his own superior presence, as Gildarts ignored him completely in favour of staring in sheer horror at the newcomer. "Cana, you _didn't!"_

"I wouldn't have _had_ to if you'd just let me come with you in the first place!" she retorted.

"He can't be trusted! You shouldn't have taken such a risk-"

Cana folded her arms. "First of all, his airship was the only chance I had of catching up with you. And secondly… the First Master trusts him. And so do I."

Although August did not dare take his eyes off God Serena, he felt his heart stir with pride at her pronouncement – pride, and the sense of belonging that he had never thought he would experience anywhere save at His Majesty's side.

And then she had to go and add, "Besides, he's only killed me once, and we've both agreed to move past it."

"HE DID _WHAT?"_ Gildarts exploded.

" _A-hem_ ," God Serena coughed, and it was quite possibly the first time August had ever been glad of the man's existence. "I have granted you the honour of facing the marvellous _me_ in combat. You could at least have the courtesy to pay attention as I destroy you."

"I will not allow that to happen," August told him steadily.

Behind his back, Cana shot her father a pointed look, and he groaned. "Alright, _fine,_ but as soon as this is over, you're going to explain to me exactly what you meant when you said _he killed you_."

"I will," August promised, before Cana could. "And, like Cana, it will be up to you what you want to do with me about it."

"Fine. Be careful, though. There's an invisible one somewhere. He's the one who…" His palm was still pressed to his side, although if it was a serious wound, he was enduring it remarkably well.

"I have already dealt with him," August reported calmly. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"

With an ethereal pulse of magic, shortly overtaken by a very material shockwave, he was gone, and the battle began in earnest.

* * *

It felt like breaking free.

Every step, whether an advance to strike his enemy or a retreat to shield the others, took him one step further from Alvarez; from the father who cared nothing for him.

Every flare of magic in defence of the two for whom his envy had become a fatal loathing shattered another chain of guilt.

Every unrehearsed yet perfectly synchronized attack with his allies erased a little more of the wrongs he had committed in other futures.

Every time Cana pulled him out of the way of a blow he hadn't seen coming, that wolfish grin informing him that yes, she _was_ keeping track of how many times he owed her; every time Gildarts took advantage of an opening he'd created, revelling in the fact that he could go all-out without having to worry about harming his teammate – he could hear it ringing out, loud and clear: _Fairy Tail is your home now. We stand with you._

Every single blow he landed in the name of his mother's guild felt like he was carving a future for himself with his own two hands.

Penitence. Salvation. A place to belong.

That was why, for the first time since learning of his father's true intentions, he was smiling as Cana finally knocked their opponent to the ground with a well-timed Fairy Glitter, and Gildarts crowed, "That's my girl!"

Yes, he was smiling, falling back into the familiar happiness of having allies to rely on, and perhaps that was why he missed the danger entirely.

Gildarts didn't miss it. The praise became a wordless shout as he lunged at Cana. She tumbled to the ground with a startled cry, and August was running towards the sound – running even though he knew he was too far away, too late, too complacent in his hope, too slow to have taken more than a single step when the stalagmite burst from the ground where Cana had been standing… where Gildarts was _now_ standing.

The tip punched through his chest, blowing his heart to pieces; lifting him up into the air like a sacrifice to some primal god.

There he was when the explosion of purgatorial heat cremated what remained of him in this world.

Ashes like rain.

And just like that, he was gone.

"No," August whispered.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Cana pulling herself into a sitting position, staring at the blackened obelisk where her father had been.

Just staring.

Nothing more.

"Not like this."

This time around, they were both supposed to live. That was how he was going to make things right.

They should have been unbeatable. The most powerful mage of Fairy Tail, and the most powerful mage of Alvarez, fighting together… except for one moment when familial affection had become complacency, had become weakness.

Last time, he had used their love against them. But things were supposed to be different this time. He was going to protect their family, their sacred bond. That was what second chances were _for._

Not this.

Not Cana, staring.

Not God Serena, laughing.

He couldn't recall consciously deciding to act. He knew, on some level, that what he was doing was every bit as pointless as it was necessary.

He moved with far more speed than he needed. Their laughing enemy had yet to get back to his feet; the hit he had taken in the hope that they might drop their guard had crippled the threat he posed.

If he'd seen that opening a moment earlier, Gildarts would still be alive.

The madness of the dragons lurked in the ex-Wizard Saint's eyes. Their desire to prove their superiority over mankind had twisted the man their souls possessed into one who couldn't stand to lose, and would go to any lengths not to do so. It was that part of him which still struggled, despite the state of his body. Eight elements fused into a spherical counter-shield that August smashed with a single blow.

If he'd done that a moment earlier, Gildarts would still be alive.

Everything his fallen enemy threw at him vanished into nothing. Slowly, deliberately, he set the butt of his staff against the man's heart – or what was left of it, between the octet of lacrima that had long ago stolen his humanity. An immense pulse of power stopped it mid-beat.

He stared at the corpse at his feet, stared like Cana had, and wondered where it had all gone wrong.

If he'd forced Cana to stay in the airship, that opening would never have arisen, and Gildarts would still be alive.

If he'd convinced the guild to let him be here from the start, where he could have stopped Jacob from wounding Gildarts in the first place, perhaps Gildarts could have beaten God Serena, and then he'd still be alive.

If he'd not come to the guild at all. If he'd not let his desire to run into his mother's arms overrule everything, and come straight here to defeat God Serena, eliminating the threat to Gildarts and Cana before he approached his mother and long before he told her specifically to call Gildarts back and send him into that fight…

But he hadn't done any of those things. He had failed.

* * *

The magic faded from August's body, leaving him leaning on his staff but perversely alive. He knew he had to talk to Cana. He couldn't just leave it there, without a word, after he had promised to save her father and then let him die in front of her.

What he was supposed to say, he didn't know. And he still didn't know when he turned to meet her gaze; didn't know as she got slowly to her feet in the silence; didn't know even as she said, "We have to get back to the ship."

He tried to say her name but it stuck in his throat.

"We need to report to the guild," she informed him, dry eyes and flat words. "They'll be wondering where we are, and I don't know how to fly the ship myself."

She turned around and walked to the airship. He went after her. He didn't know what else to do. They climbed on board, but once she had retrieved the bottle of liquor and the blank tarot card that had been saving her seat, she wandered straight out onto the deck.

He tried to follow, driven only by the alien certainty that she shouldn't be alone right now, but she stopped him with a curious look.

"It won't take off by itself," she said, pointing at the pilot's seat, and then continuing on her way.

Helpless, he did as she requested. He turned the shielding around the deck up to max, and then kept a careful eye on her as he eased the airship back into the sky.

Take-off seemed to take ten times longer than it ever had before. The instant it was safe to do so, he switched the ship over to autopilot and approached her on the deck.

She was leaning over the railings with the bottle in one hand. He stood beside her until his fear of the prolonged silence surpassed his certainty that he still did not know what to say, and he ventured, "Cana, are you alright?"

"We don't seem to be going very quickly," came the absent reply. "I'm sure we flew faster than this on the way out."

"We did," he confirmed, thrown by her choice of subject but sincere nonetheless. " _Too_ fast. It burnt out the main engine. The auxiliary flight units should be sufficient to get us back to Magnolia, but they don't have the same power."

"So, you really were doing everything you could," she mused. She raised her head a little, and offered him a small smile that didn't belong here. "Thanks, I guess."

"Cana, I'm sorry-"

"Just… just don't, okay?"

Clouds drifted by. The day was too bright for it; her eyes too dry.

Cana said, "You lied to me earlier, didn't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you said my dad rallied after my death, and fought you off in a fury. That was a lie, wasn't it?"

He said nothing. He didn't think he could.

"It's okay," she assured him. "I know what it's like, now. I loved him as much as he loved me, and I couldn't do a thing. I always figured I'd be angry, or sad, maybe, but I didn't feel anything at all. Still don't."

He couldn't help wondering how much of that was due to the bottle swinging over the side of the ship.

"I couldn't have fought after that," she reflected. "Guess he'd have killed me too if you hadn't been there, so thanks for that as well."

Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes, sharp-edged little diamonds. "Cana…"

"You know, when I was deciding whether or not to tell him who I was, I kept trying to imagine the worst possible scenario. And it always came back to denial or rejection… that he'd pretend he never knew my mother, or he'd call me a liar, because he wouldn't want someone so weak and worthless as his daughter. It never even occurred to me that he might love me so much he'd die for me." She shook her head in wonder. "Love _._ That's the real nightmare scenario, isn't it?"

"Don't say that," he begged. "Please, don't say that."

Cana shrugged. "That's two timelines now, in which it's brought us nothing but grief."

"But-" He floundered. "Before today, you- wasn't it worth-?"

His disjointed thought snapped in two before he could dig himself too deep, although he had a bad feeling that she'd understood exactly what clumsy sentiment he had been trying to express. Still, her voice was every bit as calm as before.

"Do you know how many times we'd spent time together, before today?" she asked.

It was rhetorical, but he shook his head in confusion over the line of questioning.

"Four." She counted them off on her fingers. "First, in the fifteen or so minutes between me telling him the truth and Acnologia attacking Tenrou Island. Second, after Tenrou Island's return but before he ran away to avoid being made Master. Then the third time was a few months ago, when I finally managed to track him down during the guild's disbandment, and we spent a week trying to determine which was the best bar in Bosco. And the war… this made the fourth time. That's it. I mean, I know I told him I didn't want things to change between us. The last thing I wanted was to chain him to a life he didn't want for my own satisfaction. But, you know… when I told him that, I assumed I'd have another fifty years to get to know him. Not less than one."

She lapsed into a thoughtful silence. August knew it was none of his business, none at all, but something didn't add up with the research they had done before the invasion, and as the moment stretched on, he thought the silence worse than any tactlessness. "Our intelligence reports stated that you'd been in Fairy Tail together for years."

"Sure we have. But he didn't know then, did he?"

"Didn't know what?"

"That he was my dad," she shrugged. "Mum didn't know she was pregnant when she asked for a divorce. And afterwards, she didn't want him to have any part in her life – our lives – so she never told him. Or me. I only found out after she passed away, and then I came to Fairy Tail to find him."

"And… you told him?" August whispered, over the sudden thundering of his heart.

"Nah. I meant to, but there was never a good moment. How do you walk up to a total stranger and tell them they're your dad? It's not like he knew he had a long-lost child or anything."

He nodded vehemently. Hadn't that been his own argument, almost ninety years ago? No one would be able to accept that the strange child they'd stumbled across in the middle of nowhere was their son. Saying it out of the blue would destroy any chance he had of forming a relationship with his father. He couldn't risk losing His Majesty's offer to train him in magic for, well, a label. He got to be with his father. That was enough.

Cana's musing jolted him out of his thoughts. "At least, that's how I justified it at the time. I figured I'd get to know him a bit first. He was always friendly to me, always asked after me when he came back to the guild, and I _did_ get to know him well, but it never got any easier. After all…" She gave a twisted smile. "How do you walk up to someone you've known for ten years and tell them they're your dad?"

There would be a better time, he had promised himself. When he was older. When he'd learnt to control the memories that weren't his own and show them to another. On his eighteenth birthday. As soon as they'd got back from their expedition to unite the southern states. On the first anniversary of the empire they had built together. When he was accepted into the Spriggan Twelve. When he became leader of the Spriggan Twelve.

There would be a better time.

But in ninety years, there hadn't been.

"You did tell him, though?" he wondered.

"Yeah. Eventually. Couldn't have done it without Lucy. I mean, you know my dad's reputation – strongest mage in the guild, always off on ridiculously dangerous quests. I thought that if I could prove my strength by becoming S-Class, I'd tell him. That was the deal I made with myself. But then I failed, over and over again… and why would such an incredible mage want a failure for a daughter?

"Lucy talked me into giving the trials one more shot. And… yeah, I still failed. But she gave me the courage to tell him anyway. She reminded me that, as important as he was to me, he wasn't the only thing that mattered in my life… that I'd always have her and Fairy Tail. I'd already proven I was braver than this, she said. And then, I managed to tell him the truth. I said I didn't want it to change anything between us. But he said… he asked me for my permission to love me."

There were tears in his eyes now, but not in hers, still not in hers.

"Guess I was too happy on that day to realize the consequences of saying yes," she reflected. "The nightmare scenario. I wish I'd said no, now. He'd probably still be alive."

The words were terse, but not bitter. There was no more anger in her than there was sadness; no emotion there at all.

"Cana…"

"Why do you care about this, anyway?"

There were any number of answers he could have given, and they would all have been true.

Because it wasn't right, after what she'd witnessed, for her to mourn one she had loved so much in empty silence.

Because it was important for her to hold on to her best memories of her father as the darkness tried to make itself at home.

Because she needed to think about him and cry over him; not pushing away her love because it hurt but celebrating it in words and in heart…

But what he said was, "My father doesn't know I exist. Well, he knows me, but not that I'm… you know."

"Oh," she said.

"I'm sorry," he followed up impulsively, turning back towards the bridge. "That was very rude of me. I know this isn't the best time."

"Do you want to talk about it?" she called out to him, mild curiosity replacing the rage he deserved.

He opened his mouth and closed it again without replying. He should say no. There was a reason why he had never talked about this. Still, with that one thoughtless line, hadn't he already told her more than anyone else in ninety years?

No. It didn't matter. This was her time to grieve, whether she wanted it or not. It wouldn't be right to make it about him – to heap other burdens onto her shoulders.

"I do not," he stated. "I apologize for bringing it up. I need to go and fly the airship."

"It's clearly managing fine on its own."

"Nevertheless."

He strode firmly away from her, and he'd almost made it to safety when she called, "Do you love him?"

Those words stopped him in his tracks. "I did," he affirmed quietly. "Now, I am not so sure."

"But you still want to be loved _by_ him."

"That has never mattered to me," he said shortly. "I'm not like you. He gave me a home without ever having to know who I was. He relied on me more than anyone else. I would have stayed with him, I would have wanted to be with him, whether he loved me or not."

"Is that enough for you?" Cana asked.

At last, he turned to face her; stared straight into her uncrying eyes. Gravely, he informed her, "That has always been enough for me."

There was something almost smug about the look she gave him in return. "Then why did you kill me?"

Anger, denial, loss – they smashed together, one great explosion of colour, and then burnt out, leaving nothing but numbness in their wake.

"I don't know," he whispered. "I don't know."

* * *

Cana did not say another word for the remainder of the journey. She stayed out on the deck, that amber-tinted bottle her only companion, even as the airship descended towards Magnolia.

A sizeable crowd had gathered by the time they touched down outside the guildhall. He supposed that the unexpected arrival of an Alvarez ship would do that, although the fact that their approach had not been received with the same enthusiasm as Ajeel's suggested that Mavis had connected their arrival to his and Cana's disappearance.

At any other time, the crowd would have been a welcome sight. The mere size of it, in contrast to the guild's earlier emptiness, was a tribute to the successful completion of the missions he and Mavis had arranged – and the fact that so many Fairy Tail mages had been out to fight and returned unharmed was an extraordinarily good sign. Right now, however… he knew that if he were in Cana's position, a crowd of acquaintances would be the last thing he wanted to face.

When she made no move to disembark, he mustered his courage and approached her once again. "I'll tell them what happened," he offered. "You can stay here for a while, if you want."

No response.

With no outward sign of his internal sigh, he set off to do just that – until he was stopped by a small force tugging at his cloak.

"Say," Cana whispered. "If you get another chance, promise me you'll save him."

With that, she released his cloak and brushed past him, gone to face the crowd alone.

Frozen in place, he watched as her friends gathered around her. Watched as some berated her for running off without permission, and far more applauded her for her bravery. Watched as their expressions of jubilation became confusion; disbelief; horror.

It was then that he noticed the bottle she had left on the airship's railings – the bottle which was full to the cap with amber tranquilizer. She still hadn't touched a drop. He realized, then, that for all he'd watched her brandishing it that day, he'd not once seen her take a drink; not before the battle with God Serena nor during the battle she'd been fighting ever since. No, she'd gone to both sober, with no courage but her own in her veins.

 _It was the whole world that was wrong._

All of a sudden, he couldn't stand to be here any longer, amongst these people he had failed. He strode away from the airship and from the crowd, heading not towards the guildhall – he didn't deserve that – but away from it; a cry for solitude on the banks of the lake.

Someone called out his name.

He wouldn't have stopped for anyone else, but the patter of bare feet reached his ears, and he never had been able to deny her.

"What happened?" Mavis pleaded as she reached him. "Tell me- please-"

As commander and strategist, she needed a full report. If she couldn't get it from him, she would have to get it from Cana, and that was why he forced himself to speak.

"God Serena is dead."

Every word felt like broken ice.

"Jacob was there too. He escaped while we were fighting God Serena."

He dragged his focus back from the serene sky; forced himself to meet that emerald gaze tinged with autumnal shades of concern.

"And Gildarts-"

In the distance, he could hear Cana beginning to wail.

"Gildarts-"

All this time he'd hated Cana for having what he didn't, never knowing how hard she'd had to fight for her father's love… never knowing that it wasn't providence or fortune that separated her situation from his, but courage.

"Hey, hey," Mavis was saying, alarmed by whatever she had read in his expression. She wrapped her arm around him, supporting him when the will to support himself had fled, holding him close as he proved far less a match for the grief of it all than Cana had been.

"It's okay," she whispered soothingly. "It's not your fault. You did all you could. You went with her… you fought for us… you brought her home safely…"

All he could do was shake his head, knowing she would never understand.

For the first time, he had what he'd been dreaming of ever since he was a child, and all he could think about was how much it should have been Cana returning home to a parent's embrace, not him.


	10. The Act or the Reason

_**A/N:** Huge thanks to everyone who reviewed the previous chapter! It was a difficult one to write, but I was really happy with how it came out in the end. ~CS_

* * *

 **State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Ten: The Act or the Reason**

The two inches of empty space between Invel's raised hand and the door might as well have been a pure magical forcefield.

It wasn't that he was worried His Majesty would take the news badly. Their emperor was a remarkable strategist, which implied an ability to consider all developments, even personally painful ones, from an objective standpoint. Swift, reliable information was too valuable a resource to threaten by taking out his anger on the people most likely to bring it to him. Besides, His Majesty was not prone to emotional outbursts. Centuries of learning to control his curse had ensured it.

No, Invel wasn't worried that His Majesty would take the news badly.

He was worried that His Majesty would refuse to take the news at all.

He still hadn't quite mustered up the courage to knock when that familiar voice called, "Come in, Invel."

The half-second he took to compose himself was purely mental, for he looked as immaculate as always. Although he would have sworn this time yesterday that he could annihilate the best Fairy Tail had to offer without breaking a sweat, the harsh reality was that he had maintained his image thus far only because His Majesty had held him back from joining the battle proper. That unhappy thought joined the cloud hanging over him as he pushed open the door and entered.

The command ship's cabin was hardly luxurious. The best that could be said about it was that it was light – wide windows let in a flood of foreign sunlight, for this airship was one designed for observing, not for fighting on the front lines. There was a sofa instead of the usual rigid seating, but its occupier was hardly reclining in the comfort his title afforded.

Zeref sat on the very edge of his seat, studying a small holographic map which showed a mere fraction of the disaster Invel had come to report. Still, the fact that he was taking any interest in the battle at all was a step up from earlier. Invel suppressed a grimace at the memory.

As that black gaze swept towards him, Invel made a small bow, and received a wan smile in return. Picking a safe question to open with, he asked, "You knew it was me, Your Majesty?"

"An educated guess. The area of intersection between 'people important enough to report directly to me' and 'people not currently being held captive by Fairy Tail' seems to be shrinking at an alarming rate."

This time, Invel knew his grimace was visible. There was something unnerving about how casually his emperor could comment on the disaster.

"Jacob has returned," he relayed dutifully, as if he also thought the situation of no concern. "I have his report."

Again, that strange, detached calmness. "Oh? Someone actually made it back?"

"Yes, although his freedom came at the cost of another's life. God Serena is dead."

There was a small noise of acknowledgement, but nothing more.

Invel took a deep breath. "It was August who killed him."

This time, there was no acknowledgement at all.

"According to Jacob's report," Invel pressed on, "he and God Serena had Fairy Tail's Gildarts Clive on the ropes when August arrived. He easily overpowered Jacob, and then joined the fight against God Serena, killing him after he took down Gildarts. Jacob was able to flee in the aftermath, and he returned here in order to… confirm the rumours."

Never mind that everyone except His Majesty had stopped considering them _rumours_ as soon as the first concrete reports of losses had come in.

Zeref stared at the map of the battlefield and said nothing for a very long time. Invel remained perfectly still, as was proper, although the urge to shift from foot to foot was stronger than he had ever known it.

And then, at last, his emperor sighed. "I don't understand," he said, puzzlement lending old creases to his too-young face. "If we were losing because of some genius plan to defend Magnolia left behind by Mavis, I could understand. If we were losing because of Acnologia's interference, I could understand. If we were losing because Fairy Tail turned out to be more powerful than our most generous estimates allowed – I wouldn't like it, but I could _understand_ it. But this?" There was genuine bafflement in his tone. "I don't understand at all."

"You're not the only one, Your Majesty. None of us saw this coming."

Zeref stood up suddenly. "I'm going to talk to him."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Invel objected; his tongue's tactful way of translating his brain's insistence that it was a very foolish idea indeed. Still, the insinuation was received loud and clear; Zeref gave him a humourless smile.

"It does not matter if it is wise or not. I have to know why he turned against me."

"I understand," Invel conceded, albeit somewhat stiffly. "Let me take my men; we'll cut a path through-"

"No. I will go on my own. Instruct all units to fall back from Magnolia… assuming, of course, that there are any which have not already fled."

Horror widened Invel's eyes. "Your Majesty-"

"We are beaten, Invel," Zeref said, with a resigned smile. "We were beaten from the moment August left my side."

"Your Majesty…" But Invel's protest died between his lips.

"I must confess I am adrift, Invel. I find myself constantly wondering which will be the next certainty in my life to vanish. Perhaps the sun will not rise tomorrow, or perhaps gravity will switch off, and we'll all float away. I no longer know what to think, or what I am supposed to want in this scenario. I cannot move forward until I understand how this could possibly have come to be. So, I will do just that, and I will do it alone."

He strode to the door, then paused to throw Invel one final glance. "Stay. I do not want to lose you too."

And then he was gone.

* * *

"I am truly sorry."

August tried to prevent the sigh from escaping his lips, but it was just too heavy, and the last remaining shreds of his emotional control were too damaged to restrain it. He had been doing his best to avoid Erza ever since his and Cana's return, but the guildhall offered none of the privacy of his rooms in the palace. His refusal to make eye contact had proven an inadequate shield against the blade of her sincerity.

He did not look over to where Cana sat sobbing into Lucy's shoulder; to the untouched tankard in front of her; to Mira shooing away the crowd of clumsy well-wishers. He did not have to.

"I do not think it is me you should be speaking to," he returned quietly.

"I understand that," Erza allowed. "I also understand that Cana was not the only one hurt by my actions. I am sorry for doubting you. I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been for you to fight against your friends, even if it was ultimately for their benefit…" She shook her head. "No, I _can_ imagine it, and that is why I could not believe you were truly willing to go through with it. I apologize for my failure to see that you were always stronger than I."

Unable to speak the objections clawing at his throat, August swallowed them back, ignoring the fresh scars they carved into a heart already bruised beyond recognition. He gave a jerky nod, and to his relief, Erza went away again.

Yet there was no peace to be had in a place like this, and Erza's empty seat was almost immediately taken again. He glanced up in surprise to see Makarov sat opposite him. The old Master was judiciously avoiding his gaze, and his heart sunk further still. Fortunately, before he was subjected to another unwanted apology, the next seat along was taken by Mavis, who wasted no time in spreading the latest maps out in front of them.

"War Council!" she proclaimed, before doing a double-take, and peering closely at August. He wondered how much of his internal pain showed on his face. It may have been the first time he had not wanted to meet her gaze. Every time he looked at her, he remembered Cana's empty stare; found himself wondering if the world where he stood by his mother's side was worth the price she had paid.

Cautiously, Mavis checked, "Are you alright to join in? We can do this without you."

"I'm alright."

"Very well."

She dropped the matter and turned briskly to the maps, a firm if wordless indication that Makarov should do the same. "Here's the current situation," she announced. "Of the Spriggan Twelve, we have eight in custody, and the ninth is deceased. One has fled back to Zeref, and another never left his side. The twelfth is with us." She paused to smile at August. "In other words, the command tier of Alvarez's forces has been obliterated. Zeref's army is in full retreat."

Makarov exhaled slowly. "That is good news."

August nodded his agreement.

Their somewhat subdued responses to what should have been the best news they had heard in a while did not surprise Mavis. "As Fairy Tactician, I am overjoyed," she confirmed. "But as First Master… I know I have made mistakes, and they will sit heavy with me, whatever may come. However, I must say this – we have overcome impossible odds this day. Thanks to the efforts and the sacrifices made by all, Fairy Tail lives on."

"What of Zeref?" Makarov inquired. "His lack of participation thus far concerns me. We may have beaten his army, but no one has beaten _him._ Will he acknowledge the defeat and sue for peace?"

August knew the question was directed towards him. He wanted to say that Zeref would accept that he had lost. It was undoubtedly in the empire's best interests – not least because a peace settlement was the only way to guarantee the safe return of the mages Fairy Tail was currently holding captive. Once upon a time, he wouldn't have thought twice about his answer to Makarov's question, but knowing what Zeref was truly planning… having seen how little his faithful servants truly meant to him…

"I do not know," he replied honestly. "He will not act as other rulers might. He has come to view his empire as merely a means to an end. I have no doubt that he will abandon it in a heartbeat if he believes he can obtain Fairy Heart another way."

Mavis glanced down at the table, unable to stop the dismay from creeping across her lips and stealing the lustre from her eyes. "This will just keep happening, won't it? As long as Zeref and I both live, he will always come after me."

"We won't let that happen!" came Makarov's fierce rejoinder. "We will always protect our First Master. If that means taking the fight to Zeref, that's what we'll do!"

A ghost of a smile touched Mavis's lips, but that was all it was – a ghost; a remnant. August was reminded of everything she had confessed to him in the future-that-wouldn't-be: how she did not belong in this Fairy Tail, in this world; how she was something to be protected here, rather than their equal, their friend.

Freed from her crystal prison, she had been able to take an active role in the battle as tactician, commander, and mage. When she'd defended her guild, he'd felt the same hope and happiness radiating from her as he had on board the airship that night. Now, though, neither their unlikely victory nor Makarov's heartfelt declaration of support could help her hold onto those emotions. Even if her guild accepted her, she would never stop being Fairy Heart, and she would never stop being pursued by enemies. She would always be a liability, a curse, a darkness at the heart of their guild; the reason why joining Fairy Tail would forevermore be casting one's life into the fateful lottery from which Gildarts's name had been drawn that day.

Mavis was right. Even if Zeref sued for peace, he wouldn't see it as a defeat but a temporary setback – and temporary indeed, from the view of an immortal. For the first time since August had left Vistarion in a whirl of passion, he understood that thwarting Zeref's invasion attempt was not truly a solution. Beating Alvarez would not stop Zeref.

But then, what would?

"We may not get a say in the matter."

Erza's strict tones cut into the discussion. She was striding towards them, one hand on her sheathed sword, and grim purpose resounded in her every snapped footstep. By the time she reached the conference of Masters, the entire guild had fallen silent, and as a result her words echoed out like a funeral bell: "Zeref is here."

Makarov's eyes widened. "Here? Now?"

Amidst the anxious muttering that the sudden press of gloom had condensed from the guildhall's atmosphere, there rose one predictable shout: "Let me at him!"

Natsu had only taken a single step towards the door when Erza smacked him straight back into the far wall. Addressing the other Masters as if the interruption had never happened, she elaborated, "Yes. He has come under a flag of truce."

Makarov's eyebrows disappeared into the clouds. Even Mavis looked stunned.

Looking directly at August, Erza continued, "He has asked to speak to you."

If August wasn't showing the same reaction as the others, it was only because his brain was refusing to process the meaning behind Erza's words. "To me?"

"You don't have to go," Mavis said at once, placing her hand on his shoulder. "Fairy Tail offers you sanctuary. I, or one of the other Masters, will go in your place."

"Do you think he will honour the flag of truce?" Makarov voiced doubtfully.

"I do not know," August admitted. "In all honesty, I cannot imagine why he would do this."

Steel flashed in Erza's eyes. "It could be a trap. He knows you are the reason for his defeat, and he intends to lure you out of the guildhall under an apparent truce to ensure that you go down with him."

 _He, too, has nothing left to live for but spite._

That was what he had said to Erza in a future she had forgotten.

There was nothing Zeref would not do if he felt backed into a corner. He had seen it with his own eyes, after all. He had already been almost killed by his own emperor purely for speaking out against him, and weren't his crimes in this timeline a thousand times worse?

Erza's next words dragged him out of his ominous contemplation. "As the First Master says, you are under our guild's protection. I would be honoured to face him in your stead."

"As would I," Makarov seconded.

August looked between them in alarm. "But if it's a trap-"

"I'll spring it," Erza stated, with terrifying calm. "Death magic or no, he will not find me so easy to kill."

"What she said," Makarov agreed. "Ever since we learned of his intention to invade, we have all been preparing to fight Zeref one way or another."

Mavis said nothing, but the pride glowing like the summer sun in her eyes said everything.

Something caught in his throat. They meant it. All three of them. All he had to do was say yes, and these almost-strangers who should have been his enemies would stand between him and Zeref, knowing full well that it would lead to an impossibly difficult battle.

He had found once again the sense of belonging he had lost on the day his father had betrayed him. He could stay in his mother's guild until the day he died – here, where he was welcomed and valued, despite the fact that he'd already failed them once. He never had to go back. Ever.

But nor would he let any harm come to those who had offered him his second chance.

"No," he decided. "I will speak to Zeref myself."

He wondered when His Majesty had become simply 'Zeref' to him – not his emperor; not any more. He was going to make his choice clear. He would ensure that Zeref knew exactly where his loyalties lay, and that if he came after Mavis again, August would stand between them until his final breath.

"Are you certain?" Mavis asked, in a tone that clearly said, _I don't like it, but I won't stop you._

He held firm against her concern, buttressed by the desire to protect her from the man to whom she had offered her heart, and who had repaid her by trying to erase her existence. "I am. I have to do this myself."

"I will accompany you," Erza said. It was not a suggestion.

She got to her feet beside him in the silence of the guildhall. Mavis and Makarov both moved to prevent anyone else from following him as he walked to the door – and then out into the street.

There, in the middle of the road, stood Zeref.

Erza took up a position by the entrance to the guildhall, with a nod to indicate that she would come closer only if it seemed the truce was about to be broken. Extending his magical senses, August scanned the surroundings for any indication that this was an ambush, but apart from Erza – and the whole guild pressed up against the windows of the building behind him – they were alone. If this was a surprise attack, Zeref would surely have brought Jacob and Invel with him. Perhaps he really did just want to talk… but then again, an immortal death-mage did not need help to wreak devastation upon the guild. He had already done it once, after all.

It seemed to take an age to walk the five or six paces away from the guildhall, and he still stopped several metres short of his former emperor. All the while, Zeref watched in silence. There was a strange expression on his face. Neither anger nor sadness, August couldn't quite place it – he had never seen him wear such an uncertain expression before, and yet he had the strangest feeling that he _had._

"August," Zeref acknowledged quietly.

"Zeref."

Zeref blinked once at the use of his name rather than his title, but made no comment.

August found himself wondering if he was about to die. There was no reason for Zeref to tolerate disloyalty when the servants of his empire meant so little to him. Erza had been right. Coming out here was nothing more than offering himself up for punishment – a death sentence – for doing what he knew to be the right thing.

And when he died, Fairy Tail would not stand for it. He knew that much. The final battle would begin in the road outside the guildhall, and perhaps the entire guild together could achieve what the scattered survivors had failed to do the first time round, and defeat their immortal enemy… or perhaps it would end the same way; the guildhall drowned in its own blood.

"Why?"

It was such a lost and lonely word that August would have sworn he had imagined it.

"Why did you do it?"

But it wasn't his imagination, because all the final confrontations he had imagined had opened with hatred and death. And he remembered, suddenly, where he'd seen Zeref's expression before – not in _his_ past, but in his mother's; hidden amidst the handful of precious memories he had inherited through her magic. The first time she had ever met Zeref, he had been like this: anxious, hesitant, unsure of how to treat the first human being who had refused the expected role of fear and revulsion around him and gone entirely off-script.

"Have I… have I treated you badly?" Concern glimmered within black eyes that should have promised nothing but death. "That was never my intention…"

"You have never been anything but kind to me," August retorted, before he could stop himself. "That's what made it so much worse."

Zeref's gaze turned towards the ground. "How long have you resented me?"

"It's not like that!" he snapped, and hated himself for snapping it. The pain that had driven him away from Alvarez felt like a childish tantrum in comparison to the wounded man before him, the man who had always seemed so strong and composed. Zeref might have stopped being His Majesty to him, but he would never stop being his father.

"It's not right without you here," Zeref murmured. "I cannot imagine the empire without you, not even now that I'm living it. Nothing feels real. All this time, I thought you were happy by my side… won't you at least tell me why?"

"Time travel," he said shortly, harshly. "I have returned to this time from the future."

Zeref glanced away again. "So, I am being punished for something I haven't yet done."

That hit hard. Hadn't Cana called such a thing inexcusable when she had forgiven him the sins of his own future?

But Zeref's actions were different to his. He'd fought so hard for Cana's sake in order to avoid making the same mistake twice. Zeref did not care that what he was planning was utterly reprehensible.

"I know full well you intend to do it!"

"And… you did not feel as though you could talk to me about it?"

"Don't you think that's the first thing I tried?" he shouted. "This is not the first past I have returned to!"

"I see," came the grave response. "Then, I suppose I cannot defend myself." That beautiful black gaze turned to him once again, and then dropped just as quickly, as if it had not found there what it had hoped. "Except to say that if I, too, had the benefit of hindsight, I doubt I would choose any path that I knew would make me feel this way."

August's voice came out as a snarl. "Don't lie to me! I have seen for myself how little you care! I could disappear, this whole world could disappear, and you would think nothing of it!"

"I… I don't know…"

"Yes, you do. That's all this war is about for you. Not obtaining a weapon to beat Acnologia, not strengthening your empire, not building a better world alongside those who adore you. You intend to travel back four hundred years and erase everything. You would never meet Mavis. Fairy Tail would cease to exist. The Alvarez Empire, and all of us who found a home there, would never come to be."

"And I would not be immortal," he murmured. "I would be free."

"You won't even deny it, then."

"It sounds like the ideal outcome for me," Zeref wondered.

"Then you already know why I choose to stand against you," August told him coldly. "My life has always been yours to use, but not to throw away. I will not let you take all meaning from my life, or the lives of my friends, by preventing everything we have achieved from ever coming to be."

"Do you think I _want_ to do that to you?"

"I think you do not care either way. We have always meant nothing to you."

"Perhaps," Zeref equivocated. "Perhaps not." He winced, rubbing at his forehead with the heel of his hand. "It is not so clear to me…"

August could not stop his anger from rising again. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Zeref should have been furious, inflicting fatal vengeance upon the one who had betrayed him; who had confronted him with the truth he had tried to keep hidden from his servants for so long. He ought to be cruel. Remorseless. The enemy of everyone who had lived these past four hundred years; a villain August would be proud to die defying.

He wasn't supposed to be like _this_.

He _knew_ Zeref could be manipulative. He _knew_ he would not hesitate to lie, just as he had concealed his true intentions from those who had gone to war for him. Moreover, August had made his own decision. His heart lay with the world he was trying to protect – the world that contained his mother and Fairy Tail and the wonderful years he had spent by his father's side, before all this had come to pass.

He had made his choice. He had come here to declare himself Zeref's enemy.

Yet it was growing more difficult by the minute to keep hold of that righteous outrage.

"You told me so yourself!" he shouted. "Right before you tried to erase my existence! Before you tried to kill me for interfering!"

Agitated, Zeref shook his head, as if trying to shake off invisible cobwebs. "That wasn't me. _This_ me. _I_ haven't done that, and the me who did must never have felt like _this._ "

Another memory presented itself as evidence-

-how Mavis had pleaded as Zeref seized control of Fairy Heart, tears that had cascaded ineffectually down a heart of stone, and he'd said-

 _-you didn't come here to be with me-_

 _-you came here to die-_

 _-you told me that you loved me, and then you told me to take the life you don't even want and use it to save your guild-_

-and, for the first time, August wondered if Zeref hadn't actually been planning to erase the past until that very moment.

He forced the doubt back down; buried it, melted it, obliterated it beneath a surge of molten rage and pressed other memories into its cooling surface – flashes of insight from the first time Zeref had told Mavis about his empire. "You have never thought of us as anything other than pawns to be moved in games of war. That did not begin a few hours ago. It has been true from the start. That is why you think nothing of throwing us all away, in every single timeline I have experienced."

If Zeref registered the bitterness in the accusation, he gave no sign of it, and he certainly did not rise to it. It was an even smaller voice that confessed, "That was always my intention. My curse will not let me create unless I can justify it to myself in that way. That was how I felt when I returned to Alvarez to give the order to invade. But…"

His gaze flickered briefly up again, offering a glimpse of sheer bewilderment that did not belong in the eyes of a man as great as he. "I should be angry, shouldn't I? My army has been defeated, my invasion thwarted, my plans derailed… I have every reason to be angry, and I'm just _not._ Nothing has felt real since I returned to Vistarion and you weren't there. I want you back."

"Of course you do. My being here is the reason why you lost!"

Another agitated shake of his head. "I don't mean like that. I mean… I miss you."

August took a step back. "No. You don't."

"Don't I?" It was a genuine question, not the rhetorical device August had been half-expecting. "I know there was a time when I was in Alvarez and you weren't, but I do not recall it with any great clarity. I cannot think of my country without also thinking of you, nor of you without my country. We made Alvarez into what it is, you and I. And all the times I've been away, when I couldn't bear the curse any longer… I always knew I could take as much time as I needed to recover, because you'd look after everything in my place. That's how it has always been. When I returned to find you gone, not knowing what I had done to hurt you… I felt in my heart, I _still_ feel, that I've stepped out of my world and fallen into another. One I do not want."

"You are the one who drove me away!"

"I understand that now. And I always knew that losing you – losing all of you – would be as much a consequence of pushing you away as of letting you get too close. I thought I didn't care, but if I don't care, why does nothing else seem to matter right now?"

He glanced away, rubbing at his forehead again. Pain, both physical and mental, was evident in his stance, but he pushed on through it.

"Maybe I'll feel differently tomorrow," he whispered. "Maybe I'll be angry. Maybe I'll be ashamed. I never know how I'm going to feel at any given time; that's what this curse does to me. All I can do is act on how I feel right now, and right now… I want you back in Alvarez."

"No." August took one step back, and then another. "I will not go back with you. I stand with Mavis and with Fairy Tail, and I will never help you obtain Fairy Heart."

"I don't care about any of that!" came the anguished cry. "Not right now. We'll work out a settlement – we'll find a way forward that doesn't involve conflict with Fairy Tail. I won't make you fight against them; the war is over. I just want things to go back to how they were between us and our country."

And wasn't that all August wanted too?

A peace treaty with the guild he wanted to protect. A promise that Zeref would reconsider erasing the present. A place by his father's side once again… an acknowledgement that his father wanted him; that his life and his love had some meaning…

He had always been content just to be with his father – watching over the empire they had built together; taking pride in training the next generation of mages, who had become his friends once they had ceased to be his students. He was His Majesty's most trusted vassal, his advisor and confidante, forever by his side, and… and that had always been enough.

That's what he had been telling himself all his life. That's what he had said to Cana.

And she'd smiled, and asked, _then why did you kill me?_

Because she, who had been a hundred times more courageous than he, had known the truth.

It had _never_ been enough.

He had always, always, _always_ wanted to be loved by his father, and he never had been.

Those words-

 _-I miss you-_

 _-I want you back-_

-that was why they hurt so much.

That was why he shrieked, "How can you say that? You have _never_ loved me!"

"Have I not…?" It was another genuine question, drifting to the ground like a single snowflake. There was something akin to shame in the way his fingers twisted the fabric of his robes. He had never looked less like an emperor, nor more like a raw human being. "It is so hard to tell, sometimes…"

"It could not be easier for you to tell," August retorted bitterly. "If you loved me, you'd have killed me, just like you killed Mavis."

What little spirit Zeref had left seemed to leave him all at once. "I suppose you must be right," he admitted, shoulders slumping. "Perhaps I did not understand it until you were gone. I never could make sense of my own feelings. All I know is that I don't want this to go on any longer. Please, come home."

Something halted the rejection upon August's lips. It might have been the sorrow he did not have the heart to believe his father was faking. It might have been the promise encapsulated by the word _home;_ a return to the country he loved and his father's side, and all the memories and the lifelong friendships that Fairy Tail, for all that they had come to welcome him in, could never give him.

Or it might have been something Mavis had said in a future that would never come to be.

For ten years, her curse had not laid a finger upon her three best friends – not because she didn't love them, but because she was too used to them being there for her to understand the value of their lives.

And that was when everything went wrong.

* * *

It was Erza who reacted first.

Not August, even though he was the one who had survived it twice before; his thoughts had stalled with the realization of what his father's words might mean and failed to process the consequences.

No – it was Erza, who had refused to accept that she owed him nothing, who had already offered to take his place, and who now shot past him as a blur of magic and unhesitant resolve. She collided with Zeref moments before an explosion of darkness filled the street.

It wasn't a burst of energy so much as a spreading of its absence. It moved like a wave of gaseous midnight, frothing through the street and breaking silently against the walls. Not a single pebble was dislodged by its passing – after all, it was harmless to such trivial things as walls and lampposts and roads.

Night came and went in an instant, and the day returned. The only sign that any magic had been unleashed there was the motionless body of the Seventh Master of Fairy Tail half-sprawled across Zeref's prone form.

Horror pressed down upon the scene like a concrete blanket, stifling all signs of life. Only Zeref seemed able to move, and as he shuffled out from beneath her body, his eyes were wide with the stare of a child barely old enough to comprehend what he had seen. He reached for her with trembling fingers, trying to find a pulse, and fell back with a whimper. "No… please… I didn't mean to…"

"ERZA!"

The bellow alone was enough to blow the doors of the guildhall wide open; the accompanying burst of flames was just for show. Natsu cannonballed down the street, eyes and fists ablaze with a spitting, fiery vengeance.

"Don't!" August screamed. "It was an accident!"

Perhaps Natsu didn't hear, or perhaps he didn't care. Body cloaked in flame and scales, he flung himself at Zeref with a feral roar. Zeref cringed away from him, one arm raised in a pitiful attempt to shield his face, his eyes screwed shut.

Black magic surged. Natsu hit the ground face-first and did not move again.

"Natsu," Zeref whimpered. "No, please, come on… you can't be dead… not like this…"

"Natsu!" another voice yelled. Gray dodged Mavis's attempt to catch him and hurtled down the street, ice crawling over the melted footprints the Dragon Slayer had left behind as he prepared to unleash his strongest magic. Nor was he alone. Heedless to their First Master's calls for restraint, the guild swarmed onto the battlefield, desperate to avenge their fallen comrades or defeat their final enemy or both.

It wouldn't be enough.

It hadn't been enough the first time round, when the guild mages had been coordinated rather than grief-stricken, and their enemy had been in full control of his magic. Now, death ran rampant through Magnolia. Zeref curled up in a foetal position in the middle of the street, eyes closed and hands clamped over his ears, begging over and over for it to stop as the greatest of the guild's warriors fell like discarded husks around him.

And August could do nothing but stare, frozen not by the horrific waste of life but by how quickly everything had fallen apart.

He'd had his father's affection. His mother's trust. They'd been about to form a settlement, a peace deal, a way to end the conflict with no more death.

Thirty seconds later, it was gone. That black wind had swept it all away.

Somewhere in the chaos, Zeref's gaze locked onto his; a wordless plea for help.

Mavis's hand grabbed his own and wrenched him out of it, and _her_ plea was not wordless at all: "Fix this! You have to!"

"I can't!" he shouted back. "I don't know how-!"

Trying, in those few desperate words, to convince her that he couldn't do this again, he _couldn't;_ he'd tried to save everyone and he'd got them all killed _again,_ and he didn't know how he could go back to a time when his mother didn't know him and his father didn't care for him and the world was damned whether Zeref wanted war or peace-

She shook her head fiercely. "You can. You will. I know it."

And it hurt more than he could say, because with that, the choice had been taken out of his hands. For the third time in three different futures, he could not deny the one and only request his mother had ever made of him. Light poured from her as she released the power hidden inside her body, and it wrapped around him once more, a ghost of the embrace he had always longed for…

But it was different, this time. Warmer. He opened his eyes a crack, and through the radiance of the magic she was weaving he could see her holding him tightly, her face buried into his chest, and she whispered, "Please."

He took the magic she offered him, and went into the light for her.

* * *

 _Thwump._

The book tumbled from slack fingers, turned a lazy half-flip in the air, and slumped across the floorboards spine-up.

August stared at it. Those precious arcane secrets, scrawled in blood and preserved for three hundred years within a binding of beaten dragonhide, lay in a heap before him, and he made no move to retrieve it.

He didn't know what to do now.


	11. Courage

_**A/N:** I know I say this a lot, but seriously, thank you so much to everyone who is following this story, and especially to my reviewers. Your engagement with this little story, your feedback, and your words of encouragement never fail to make me smile (and have helped motivate me through the hardest chapter yet to write...) ~CS_

* * *

 **State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Eleven: Courage**

What now?

August stared at the book whose fall had inexplicably come to mark the beginning of his time loop, and could not quite bring himself to reach for it.

He didn't know what he was supposed to do.

He knew why Mavis had sent him back. No one had wanted that outcome – not her, not him, not even Zeref. It wasn't the first time he had seen the remnants of the guild massacred, but it _was_ the first time it had ever been unintentional; not one final push to secure Alvarez's victory but peace talks which had gone horribly wrong.

He knew, as well, why he'd had to go. Everything he had wanted to protect – his friends, Cana, Fairy Tail, the whole accursed world – had been condemned the moment Zeref had lost control of his curse. He couldn't have accepted an ending like that, having been offered the chance to change it.

But, that was just it. He'd gone back because he _had_ to. Not because he had a plan.

The same hopelessness he had felt the very first time he had been flung into the past rose up in him again. He wasn't the kind of person who could come up with world-changing plans. Strategic genius was not an inheritable trait… and yet he had been the only one sent back; it was all inexplicably on _his_ shoulders.

The first time he'd gone back, he'd thought he had known how to save everyone. He'd avoided the war entirely, and it had only brought greater disaster upon them all.

The second time, he hadn't thought at all. He had acted purely on impulse, driven not by hope or ingenuity but by a knee-jerk response to his father's act of betrayal. Mavis's trust, Erza's respect, and Cana's ill-placed forgiveness had assured him that he was on the right path, and knowing his friends would live to see the end of the war had soothed the wounds left by Ajeel's scathing words. It wasn't until the very end that everything had fallen apart.

He could run to Mavis's side once again. He could ensure everything happened as it had last time – no, he could go one better. He could save Gildarts this time; could grant Cana the happy ending denied to her in every other future. That alone would make doing this all over again worth it… but it wasn't truly a solution, was it?

The war wouldn't end when the Spriggan Twelve were defeated. No matter how thoroughly Zeref's army was crushed, Zeref himself was still an immortal death-mage afflicted with a terrible curse, and he still sought Fairy Heart as a means of escape. He was capable of taking out the entire guild on his own – and in no timeline had anyone, friend or foe, found a way of defeating him.

There was no way around the final confrontation between Zeref and Fairy Tail. He was immortal, an unstoppable force, and if met with the immovable barrier of Mavis agreeing to spend all eternity beyond his reach on Tenrou Island, the resulting collision would destroy all sanity left in the world. It already had done, once.

No, it didn't matter which side nominally won the war. It would always come down to the same two outcomes: Zeref would obtain Fairy Heart and remake the world, or he would succumb to the madness of desperation and destroy it himself.

The worst thing was that even if Zeref wanted peace, those two outcomes were still unavoidable. He had been willing to negotiate last time – and it was that very desire that had led to the guild's massacre. The clash between him and Fairy Tail had already been set in motion; time hadn't turned back far enough to prevent it. And even if August tried to stop it as he had before, by leaving Zeref's side and hoping Zeref would once again inexplicably want him back enough to consider a peaceful resolution, his curse would still unleash death upon Magnolia, because…

His heart lurched as the realization he had been pushing away ever since the massacre at the guildhall finally broke through his defences.

 _He loves me._

Just as Mavis hadn't understood the value of her friends until she had been forever separated from them, his father had not realized how important he was to him until he had turned against Alvarez.

How blind had he been to not see it sooner? Zeref _couldn't_ love consciously; it was far too much a risk with his curse. He had trained himself to crush that feeling for centuries, and if Mavis had been spectacular enough to slip through those defences, they had only been redoubled in the wake of her passing.

But the signs had been there, if only he had thought to look for them.

How many other children had he brought to his side, without any guarantee that they would prove to be loyal or powerful or a useful advisor? To how many had he offered a home, rather than just a lifetime of service?

How many others did he trust to lead the empire in his absence?

How many of his colleagues would have been met with fury and punishment if they turned on him, rather than a plea to come home?

How many would he have cared for if they collapsed before a war council, reassuring them that he would rather they stayed behind and survived than fought a battle they were too ill for, regardless of how important that battle was to him?

Tears trickled slowly down his cheeks as he retrieved the fallen book – the one that Zeref had given him for no real reason; the one that had made his father think of him and offer it as a gift in defiance of protocol – and cradled it to his chest.

Somewhere along the way, he had come to take it as read that his father would never love him – that Zeref's curse and his history had conspired to render it impossible, and that even if he still had the capacity for love after Mavis's death, he would refuse it rather than expose himself to more suffering.

Somewhere along the way, his own acceptance of the tragedy of his unrequited love had left him blind to the fact that it had never been unrequited.

Maybe it wasn't the familial love he had always longed for. Maybe it wasn't something that Zeref would ever realize consciously in this timeline, let alone put into words. But he had seen it, and wasn't that enough?

 _Is that enough for you?_

It wasn't the words that still haunted him so much as the knowing tone in which Cana had spoken them.

Because she, who had spent most of her life in the same guild as her unaware father; who had waved to Gildarts along with everyone else as he'd left on another Ten Year Quest without her; who had occupied the same small part of his life as the guild's other children for so many years – she had known the truth.

 _Then why did you kill me?_

So she had asked him, with the perceptiveness that only true empathy could bring. If all he'd wanted to do back then had been to destroy the paternal love that she had and he didn't, it wasn't her he would have targeted in their fight, but Gildarts. He would have killed her father and left her no better off than he was. But he hadn't. He'd struck out at her, because she'd been the closest thing to the one he'd _really_ wanted to strike down.

It hadn't been her he had hated in that moment, but himself.

It wasn't her fault his father didn't love him. It was _his._

Cana hadn't been handed her father's love gift-wrapped. She had earnt it. She had found the courage to tell Gildarts the truth, knowing full well that it might have ruined what little relationship they had. _He_ had done no such thing.

What had he been expecting, all these years? That Zeref would wake up one day somehow convinced that his former lover must have had a secret child, never mind that she had been clinically dead for months by the time of the birth, and that said child absolutely had to be the vassal who had never mentioned anything of the sort during his decades of service? It wasn't Zeref's fault he had never loved the son he didn't know he had, was it?

For so long he had hidden behind the same excuses: Zeref was incapable of love; Zeref couldn't see people as anything more than tools; Zeref didn't know what it meant to form a meaningful connection with another human being. And, gradually, he had been able to shift the blame for never being loved from himself onto his father, until he could erupt with rage over never having known the love of a parent heedless to the fact that the only person to blame for his situation was himself.

Why had he never told his father the truth?

There hadn't been a good moment, yes, but there hadn't been for Cana either. The one she'd set aside had never materialized after she failed the S-Class Trials yet again, but she'd done it anyway. She'd made her own moment. And he'd been too afraid to do the same.

What was he so afraid of?

 _Denial,_ Cana had said, but if he thought about it, didn't he have a unique way around that? His magic and his father's were deeply connected. Returning the memories he had inherited through that bond would be proof enough, if Zeref was willing to look at them.

 _Rejection._ Yes, and he had far more to lose than Cana did there, because he was close to Zeref in a way she had never been to Gildarts before she'd told him. If Zeref pushed him away, he'd lose his home, his livelihood, his very reason for being… but she was the same, wasn't she? Cana wouldn't have wanted to stay in the guild any more than he'd want to stay as leader of the Spriggan Twelve, and everything she had was tied up in Fairy Tail as much as his in Vistarion. He may have had more to lose than her, but either way, they'd both have ended up with nothing. She had deemed the gamble worth it. _He_ was the one who claimed to love his father more than anything, and yet had deemed his current position too important to risk.

 _Death._ It had never been a consideration for Cana, but Zeref wasn't Gildarts. His instinct was to push people away, and death magic was an effortless way of removing the source of his anger, his hurt, his fear. After all, the Black Mage had quite a reputation… but not in Alvarez, did he? He had never been anything here but composed and authoritative; stern when he had to be but never cruel; beloved by his aides and his people. Why deny nine decades of first-hand evidence suggesting Zeref would respond with civility for the sake of the myths Mavis had known better than to believe?

And then, of course, there was what Cana had labelled the worst possible outcome.

 _Love. That's the real nightmare scenario, isn't it?_

Gildarts had loved Cana enough to die for her; an outcome she hadn't even considered before telling him the truth. August, too, had convinced himself that Zeref would never love him – that he wanted weapons of his Twelve, not family, and being at his side necessitated abandoning that desire to be loved. And if Zeref wasn't going to love him either way, what was the point in telling him the truth?

But Zeref did love him.

In his own way, Zeref always had.

He may have been an immortal emperor, but he was still human – he hurt, he cried, he loved, as far as he was allowed. Maybe he would reject his son. Maybe he would make him flee for his life again, and he could return to Fairy Tail and have another go at preventing the war. Maybe it would be the last time he ever got to see his father: one new and awful memory, but ultimately only one, to weigh against a lifetime of happy ones.

Maybe.

But at least he'd know that the reason why his father didn't love him wasn't because he lacked the courage to tell him the truth.

No, he didn't know how to prevent the devastation that seemed inevitable in every timeline, but he knew someone who might – someone who could have helped from the start, if he had only had the courage to trust him; to love him; to welcome him into his life, in just the way he had so hypocritically expected to be welcomed in himself all these years.

As the sound of the crowds cheering their emperor's return reached his ears, he got to his feet. He considered the book in his hand, tempted for one wild moment to bring that symbol of casual affection with him, before he set it down on his desk with a rueful smile and strode for the door.

It was time to do what he should have done ninety years ago.

* * *

August was too tense to concentrate during the war council. Not that it mattered – whatever the outcome of his confession, he knew with certainty that he would not be fighting for Alvarez in the upcoming war. Perhaps he'd run to Mavis's side, perhaps he'd live out the rest of his days in a country far from here, perhaps he would no longer be a citizen of this mortal world… but he bore no animosity towards Fairy Tail, and nothing would change that.

The meeting came to an end far too quickly. Before his resolve could fail him, he stood, and requested, "Zeref, may I speak with you?"

He realized his mistake immediately. A murmur of confusion ran around the departing mages – soft amongst those who were not familiar with their emperor's birth name, and harsh from the few who were. Zeref gave him a curious look, but there was no trace of hostility in his voice as he said, "Of course," and motioned for the others to leave without answering their silent queries.

When they were alone in the chamber, Zeref remarked mildly, "It's unusual for you to call me that."

"I apologize, Your Majesty," August said at once, inwardly cursing the habit he had developed in the past timeline for setting them off on the wrong foot.

Zeref raised a hand to forestall any further apologies. "It's not as though I mind it. It is how I introduced myself to you, after all."

"I… I had forgotten," he admitted, ashamed to find that it was true.

"I never liked to introduce myself by name when I travelled," Zeref reflected. "Anyone who recognized it was bound to push me away. But… I thought it would be okay with you, because you were too young to understand what it meant. I could just be me… until we arrived back here, at least."

August opened his mouth, but no words came out. To think that he had remembered such a trivial, vital thing all these years; to think that he valued the memory of their meeting enough for that…

"Anyway," Zeref resumed, his eyes sharp and bright on the eve of war. "I assume you have concerns about the invasion that you do not wish to raise in front of the others."

It was a question as much as a statement; an order to speak.

"No," he replied automatically, and winced. "Well, yes, I do, but… that's not it." A deep breath. "There are two things I need to talk to you about."

"Go on, then."

"The first is…"

The silence stretched on, a void beckoning him to jump. Cana may have told him _when_ she'd done it, but not _how,_ and a step-by-step guide to exactly what she'd said would have been nice right about now.

"There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to do it," he insisted – an order to himself, as if he really believed that he would fall for his own illusion of resolve. "You're… you're my father."

He sensed more than saw Zeref's eyes narrow almost imperceptibly; felt him mentally running through every possible meaning that phrase could have, literal and figurative, and dismissing them all as insufficient explanations. "I don't understand."

That should be it, it should be over; he should have an answer, one way or the other. He had jumped, and the fall had relinquished him into the custody of the ocean beneath, which held him down and flooded his lungs with panic.

"I don't know how else I can put it," he floundered, fighting against the useless sensation of tears. Not now. _Not now._ "You're my father. I'm your son."

"I am father to all in this nation by deed," Zeref explained carefully. "And father to the demons by magic-"

"And to me by blood."

His expression darkened. "Not possible."

"It is!" he insisted, and he hated how childish it came out. "Mavis is my mother!"

"SHE DIED!" Zeref howled.

The raw pain in those words lashed into his heart. He would have run for it, if he could, but the cliff edge was too high to reach and he had already fallen too far.

"She didn't!" he shouted back. "Precht placed her body in the crystal because he sensed life in her! She was already too far gone for it to bring her back, it could only stop her from crossing over, but he didn't know that! He tried for weeks to revive her, because the crystal was functioning correctly, and the readings were promising, and he couldn't understand why she wasn't recovering…"

He swallowed, blinking back the tears.

"It wasn't Mavis the crystal was healing. Those signs of life were never hers. They were… they were _me_."

"You lie."

"No!"

"Why are you doing this?" Zeref burst out. " _Why?_ What kind of twisted plot _is_ this? What are you gaining from these lies? Are you trying to hurt me with the past-?"

His response came back twice as savage. "I _never_ want to hurt you! I…" Taking a deep breath, he raised his hand, palm turned outwards. It glowed with a magic he had not summoned himself; an impossible fusion of light and darkness. "Let me show you. Please."

Tendrils of black energy snapped around the other's body, drawn out by his anguish. All they had to do was strike him, and the source of their master's pain would be gone from this world. Just that, and it would be over. His life would end; his hope and courage judged unacceptable by his father-

Slowly, ever so slowly, Zeref touched the back of his hand to August's raised palm.

Magic flared around them. It was brilliantly bright, not the black of death but as warm a gold as Fairy Heart. In a way, it _was_ the magic of Fairy Heart; remnants of that divine power imprinted in the soul of the child it had nurtured.

A connection sparked. Power surged. The memories inherited through a quirk of magic were returned all at once-

 _A girl stood on the lakeside, beloved by all creation, wind flowing through her hair and water rippling around her toes; a girl who had seen the truth of him and yet refused to turn him away-_

 _The compassion that had healed him, and scarred him-_

 _The lonely years spent haunting the forests around Magnolia, hoping for the chance to see her again-_

 _The happiness when he did-_

 _The horror of realizing what he had done to her-_

 _Her promise to stay with him, a promise he didn't deserve, so full of kindness that in a single moment his immortal life had become the greatest gift he had ever been given-_

 _And-_

 _The body in his arms-_

 _Not moving-_

 _Why wasn't she moving-?_

August had always known what had happened on that day, but it had never seemed so real before. He had learnt, since then, how it felt to lose those close to him, and even that was nothing compared to the sheer magnitude of the loneliness surging down their connection – a loneliness he knew some part of Zeref had come to blame on Mavis for leaving him, for _dying,_ because it had been the only way for him to retain any shred of sanity in the aftermath.

Living magic connected him and his father. It wasn't a memory of emotion he was feeling right now, but Zeref's pure and present heartbreak at reliving it, raw and true. He tried to wrench the flow of magic away, but it would not respond to his call and the grief the grief the _grief-_

The connection snapped. Zeref staggered backwards, his hand clutched to his chest, his eyes overflowing with liquid pain-

And something more-

Something bitter-

 _Hate-_

Zeref turned, and in a whirl of black and white, he fled the room.

* * *

And that was that.

It was over. August had done exactly what he'd come here to do. He'd proven himself as courageous as Cana; he'd shown that the star-struck boy who had taken his emperor's hand in silence had finally grown up. He should have felt relief, or _something,_ but all he could do was stare at the closed door.

What, really, had he been expecting?

 _Nothing,_ he told himself. He was still alive, despite more than one moment when he'd believed his father's magic would kill him – and wasn't that an achievement in itself?

Zeref had every reason to hate him. After all, in a few short minutes, his worldview had been shattered. His plans had been disrupted on the eve of war. He had been forced to relive the worst moment of his life. He had been given a son he didn't want and lost the loyal vassal he had believed would never lie to him all at once.

His actions had hurt his father deeply, and why-? Because of his own selfish desire for acknowledgement. Because he had suddenly rejected the emperor-vassal relationship that had served them just fine for the best part of a century. Because he hadn't considered his father's feelings at all until now, just his own.

No wonder Zeref had run. August wouldn't have wanted anything to do with himself either.

If there was one small consolation, it was that no matter how much Zeref resented him now, it was nothing compared to how much he hated himself.

He couldn't stay there any more, in the room where everything had gone wrong – no, in the room where he had ruined everything. He couldn't face the palace, either. He found a staircase and headed upwards, emerging onto a balcony that protruded from one of the highest towers. There he collapsed onto the railings, lacking the strength – or perhaps it was the will – to hold himself upright.

The thing was, this time, he'd really thought he'd got it right. He'd been sure that telling his father was the solution he had been missing.

Maybe that was why it had all gone wrong. Mavis had sent him back to find a better future for her guild, and he'd abused that chance to try and make his own life better, at the expense of those around him. Now, the one man who cared for him had pushed him away.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he told himself fiercely. _I came here to tell him. I have told him. Now, I need to find an airship, fly to Fairy Tail, and figure out how to save Gildarts and win this war._

But of course it mattered. Because ever since Cana had said-

 _-he asked me for my permission to love me-_

-some idiotic, infantile part of him hadn't been able to stop hoping.

But Zeref wasn't Gildarts, and both he and August had had so much more to lose.

* * *

A soft knocking from behind arrested August's attention – Invel, probably, come to tell him that the main fleet was ready to depart. Or worse, wanting to know where their emperor had got to.

He wheeled around to report that he would not be travelling with the army, only for the words to die upon his lips. It wasn't Invel standing in the doorway, but Zeref.

The first peculiar thought that reached August was how small he looked. Zeref had always been too young, his body frozen in time before he had had the chance to reach adulthood, but the commanding presence he usually wielded as Emperor Spriggan sang of experience and of strength, and without it, he just seemed… small. He wasn't quite meeting August's eyes.

"Can- can we talk?" he asked.

Not trusting himself to speak, August nodded.

Zeref looked like he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not. He stepped out onto the balcony, leaning on the railings just like August, yet, ironically, a little further away than he would have stood before today. He, too, stared out over his capital city, as if the right words were hiding somewhere in the streets below.

"I'm- I'm sorry," he ventured, at last. "I didn't know how to react. I still don't. It's… it's a lot to take in."

All August could say was, "I know. I'm sorry."

"I still don't know how I feel about this," Zeref admitted. "To be honest, I am angry. I didn't choose this. I didn't even get a say in it. I'm frustrated, too. There are many things I would have done differently, had I known before today. But, more than that… I think I feel betrayed." He glanced directly at August, black eyes flashing with an echo of that pain. "You've always known, haven't you? Why did you keep it from me for so long?"

Then, to his surprise, Zeref shook his head before he could answer. "No, I know why you did. Even I wouldn't have known how I would react. And I am sure that this conversation, while not perhaps unexpected, is not what you were hoping for either."

Again, he prevented August's token denial with a raised hand. "I suppose what I am trying to ask is – why now? Are you… are you concerned about the war?"

He had switched out his words at the last moment, but August caught the original message loud and clear: _are you worried that you won't live to get another chance?_

"That's the other thing I need to talk to you about," he confessed, before his courage could fail him again.

"Ah. I forgot you mentioned two things. After the first, I am almost fearful to hear the second, but I suppose I ought to get it over with."

"I am not sure whether you'll find it better or worse," August warned him, and received an impatient gesture in response. "I have returned to this present from the future three times now. I have already fought the upcoming war three times over – or twice, I suppose, since the second time I prevented it from happening altogether. Every timeline has ended in disaster. I never asked to be sent back, but since I'm here, I have resolved to find a better way forward for this world. And if there is one thing I have learnt from my failures… it's that I can't do this on my own. Please. I need your help."

After a moment's consideration, Zeref stepped back from the railing and turned to face him properly.

There was still something unsure about him. He would be feeling his way blindly around their new relationship for some time yet – they _both_ would.

But at the same time, there was the flash of a shooting star in the darkness of his eyes – a light that belonged not to the lost and uncomfortable father, but to the Emperor of Alvarez, the legendary Black Mage, the strategist whose skill and experience made him the equal of Mavis's raw talent… the man August loved more than anything.

And just like that, he realized what he'd been missing.

He didn't need his father to turn around and profess a love too sudden to be meaningful. He didn't need to be held in a warm, parental embrace. Zeref wasn't Gildarts, and a man who could suddenly start treating him as family was not the man he had always loved. Comfort was in the spark of a challenge accepted that flickered in Zeref's eyes at his words; home was knowing that the most powerful, most ingenious, most resourceful mage in the entire world was right there beside him.

His father stood with him against the end of everything, and that meant more to him than he could say.

Zeref said, "I think you'd better tell me everything."


	12. To Win Without A Fight

**State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Twelve: To Win Without A Fight**

 _Tell me everything._

It was both invitation and command; an offer to listen and the expectation that it be taken up.

Still, August found himself hesitating. "You may not like what you hear."

"I like working from incomplete information even less." A snap of impatience reverberated beneath Zeref's words, far too familiar to be frightening. "Tell me everything. I assure you I will not hold you accountable for anything you have not done in _this_ timeline."

"Nor I you," August returned evenly.

Zeref's eyes widened a little at the realization that _he_ was the one August was trying to protect, but he nodded his consent to the terms.

And so August told him everything.

Zeref's expression remained impassive as he described, in terse words, the carnage of the first war and its subsequent spiral into chaos and despair. He spoke of his and Erza's escape from the palace, and how Fairy Heart had somehow sent him back to the day before the invasion. It was his discovery that Erza had named him the Tenth Master of Fairy Tail which provoked the greatest expression of surprise – and amusement – from Zeref, although by the time he recounted his conversation with Mavis on the airship and the tragedy of the ensuing reunion, Zeref had shed all emotion once again.

Because he had promised to be honest, August told him truthfully about his defection the third time round – but to his amazement, Zeref simply laughed at how easily his forces had been beaten. He was quieter through the story of how his defeat had prompted a massacre, and when August admitted his own belief that it would always come down to a final confrontation between Zeref and the remnants of Fairy Tail; a conflict which, no matter how badly beaten Zeref was at that stage, would inevitably result in the annihilation of the guild… then, Zeref was completely silent, and his expression gave nothing away.

The silence persisted long after the story of undone futures had come to an end. August wasn't anxious, though. As his father considered the matter, he knew that the burden he had born through too many timelines was no longer upon his shoulders alone, and his patience would have lasted an eternity.

At last, Zeref assessed, "As I see it, you have two main problems."

No accusation, no judgement, no throwing around of blame, just leaping straight to the problem he had promised to help solve.

"The first is – how did you put it? The horrific loss of life that will result from any genuine clash of mine and Mavis's forces." He tapped his finger against the railing in sharp staccato chimes. "That is your problem, not mine, and I do not much care for it. You understand why, of course."

"I do," August confirmed, knowing how counterproductive it would be for Zeref to embark upon a mission whose explicit purpose was to save lives.

"You will have to solve that one on your own. Besides, I rather think it is insignificant compared to the other problem: me."

"You're not-" August began automatically, before an irritated look demanded his silence.

"I am, and we both know it. You have it absolutely right. This will end only when I die or when the timeline is reset. Since I _can't_ die, the only future that awaits in any and all timelines is the one where the past four hundred years are undone."

"Why? You could just choose not to do it!"

"I could," Zeref agreed. "But I won't."

"But-"

"I'm not saying that erasing the past is what I want. What I'm saying is that even though it _isn't_ what I want right now, sooner or later it will become what I _do_ want once more."

"I don't understand."

Zeref nodded slowly, recognizing his confusion and attempting to work through his thoughts in a way someone else could understand. "I don't think I lied to you, in the timeline when I promised not to reset the world and then tried to do so anyway. Ever since I stumbled upon it as a solution, I've cycled through phases of deciding to do it, and then realizing the cost is too high and resolving never to do it, and then deciding no cost can be too high and starting to plan for it once more… and none of it ever strikes me as inconsistent, although I am sure it must seem so to you.

"Right now, I am confident that if Fairy Heart – if _Mavis_ – were before me, I would have no desire whatsoever to go back in time. But would it last? No. Maybe the madness of war would do it; maybe the death of my hope… maybe it would be something as simple as Mavis unintentionally saying something to hurt me… one tiny thing is all that is ever needed to fracture my control and leave me vulnerable to the curse. This- this _sanity_ will disappear, along with any promises I may or may not make you here and now. I am a threat to the entire world, August – not through choice, but through the lack of it."

August glanced away. Never before had he heard his father speak so openly about the curse which afflicted him. He knew the truth of it, of course – knew it better than anyone else in Alvarez, for he had seen in flashes of borrowed memory a darkness that had never broached the empire's borders. Yet even he found Zeref's confession hard to believe. How could a man who could analyze his own problems so objectively be as unpredictable as he claimed?

"It is the strangest thing," Zeref mused, as if he knew exactly what August was thinking. "I don't know how I feel about- about the _other_ thing you told me, and it appears to have completely baffled my curse. I am already feeling every possible emotion at once, and it is at a loss for how to make things more contradictory for me. Because I do not know how to react to _that,_ it seems _this_ has become exceedingly clear to me."

"Then we'll find a solution while we can," August said fiercely. "Why does resetting the world have to be the first solution you reach for when things go wrong? Tell me what you want – what you _need_ – and all of us here will do everything in our power to make the world that _is_ the world you want to keep."

This earnt him a curious look. "It's not about what is and what isn't. In all the times we've clashed in the future, did I never tell you why I was willing to undo four hundred years of building an empire?"

It occurred to August then that others had always been quick to make their opinions known-

 _-_ Erza had said, twisted and spiteful: _he will erase this world, and everyone who lives and has lived in it over the past four hundred years, just so that he can get his happy home life back again-_

 _-_ and Mavis had said, crying with the knowledge that she could have saved him and didn't: _how could a world in which he never met me be anything but better than the one in which he did?-_

-but he had never put the question to his father directly, so he shook his head.

"I want to die," Zeref said.

"Don't say that."

The words slipped out before he could stop them. That wasn't right. It couldn't be. Not the man he adored. Not when he had finally been able to tell him everything.

"It is the truth. It has been the truth for four hundred years."

"It can't be." August shook his head frantically. "I know you've felt that way at times, I've seen it, but…"

He tailed off. While he knew his father had gone through awful suicidal phases in the past, he had only ever seen it in memories, never in person. Whenever Zeref was in Alvarez, he was always strong and composed, stable of heart and mind, looking towards the future…

Though he wasn't always in Alvarez, was he? He already knew that Zeref disappeared when the curse was at its most vengeful – to protect his nation and his people from the death that followed as his shadow. But just as he had spoken of a contradiction far more extreme than anything August had seen with his own eyes, what if Zeref wasn't merely keeping them safe through separation, but hiding his weakness from them; hiding anything that might make him seem inadequate as their absolute leader…?

A soft smile touched the other's lips. "I leave when it becomes too much. It would be too difficult to keep control of my empire if the rest of the Twelve knew how badly it can affect me. I have never tried to end my life on Alvarez soil. Having a record like that helps, sometimes."

"But…"

"Can you imagine what it's like to live with this curse every day? I cannot risk getting close to anyone, because if I do, they'll die. I can't even-" Bitterness flashed in his eyes as he glanced at August, and then quickly away again. "No, I have long since ceased being capable of love. Half the time, my thoughts don't make sense at all. I'll destroy tomorrow the things I create today, unable to understand what drove me to create in the first place, and by the time I find that wonder again they'll be lost to me forever."

The softness of his voice rose with awful passion. "The empire exists only because I never intended it to be the home, the marvel, the beacon of hope you perceive it to be! It has always been a tool to me, expendable; a step on the path to my own demise. If it hadn't been, the curse would never have permitted it to exist!"

Zeref drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "I know you know this. I know you've seen it in my memories. You of all people should understand."

"I don't want to lose you."

"Then you are selfish and you are cruel."

"I love you."

It was the first time he had spoken those words and known that his father would understand them as more than a gesture of fealty, and yet Zeref's face remained impassive. "If you truly did, you would not seek to tie me to this life. I cannot keep doing this. That's all the war has ever been about. I do not bear any animosity towards Fairy Tail, except for their insistence on standing between me and my only hope of rest."

"I know that. I _do._ But…"

"Nothing can kill me," Zeref stated. "In four hundred years, I have found no magic that can do it. Acnologia can't, and not for lack of trying, the few times we've met. Natsu… I had hoped, but you have already told me that he cannot."

Slowly, and hating himself for it, August nodded a confirmation. "The first time… Natsu was in possession of a single-use magic that you believed would be able to do it, but it had no greater effect on you than any other magic. I think… I think that was when you ceased trying to find any path that wasn't undoing the past. Later, when you encountered Natsu again, you didn't hold back. He beat you, but when he was still unable to kill you, you killed him."

"I thought as much. There are remarkable mages in that guild… I hoped that if I put them under the pressure of total annihilation, a weapon capable of killing me could be forged there… but I assume that didn't happen, either."

August forced his mind back to that first, awful battle. Many mages had tried to do just that; most had fallen before they'd got the chance. He, and the other surviving members of the Twelve, had been responsible for much of that.

Worst of all, though, had been the realization that their emperor was as susceptible to the desperation of war as the rest of them. After Natsu had fallen, Zeref had ripped through the remnants of the guild with horrific ease. None had been able to overcome his immortality; none had been able to survive the death magic that danced at his command once their failure to kill him stripped away any value their lives may have held.

Zeref could see the truth of it in his expression. "Do you see? My immortality is absolute. I have been seeking a way out for four hundred years, and the only way to circumvent the curse is to go back far enough to ensure it never happens."

"But even if you went back, couldn't you be happy there, with your- your family?" August argued. Referring to others as Zeref's family stung, when he had never held that coveted title himself, but it was nothing compared to how much Zeref's wish frightened him. Erza had scorned Zeref's intention to destroy everyone else's happiness so that he could be with his brother, but that would be a thousand times better than knowing his father was going back purely to die-

"I do not think I can put it into words," Zeref pondered. "You tell me."

He opened his mouth to say that he couldn't, of _course_ he couldn't; no one could understand that warped desire but Zeref himself… but the more he thought about it, the more obvious the answer became. Just as he had been able to see how true Mavis's love for Zeref had been, it was clear to him that, in the decades after being cursed, the love that had set his father upon his doomed path had become an obsession. The brother he had given up everything for had slowly ceased to be a human being in his mind and become instead an objective, an item on a to-do list, a _weapon,_ until he could happily give him up for four hundred years in return for only the slightest chance that he would acquire enough power to kill him…

Hesitantly, and then with growing confidence, August began, "If you went back in time, you'd have to retain your memories of the future. Otherwise, everything would play out the same as before. But if you keep your memories, experiences, and knowledge… the rest of the world might return to how it was four centuries ago, but _you_ won't. A domestic life will bore you. The primitive state of magic will frustrate you. The ignorance of others to what you've seen will isolate you. And… and the scars of the cursed life you've lived will never fade. You don't know how to live freely or love others or… or _feel safe._ Perhaps your family will be as you remember them, but you won't be as they remember you. You've been through too much for that. Natsu might become your brother once more, but you will never again be his."

"That's it, exactly." There was a kind of awe to Zeref's voice, as if August had solved a puzzle that had stumped him for decades. "Even on my better days, I do not think I would last more than twenty-four hours in such a world. But at least there, I would have that way out." He leaned over the railings, his shoulders slumping. "I do not want to take this world from you. There is simply no other way for me to end my own existence. That is why every timeline ends as it does."

They lapsed into silence as they stared out across the city.

August felt trapped – trapped like his father had been for four hundred years.

On some level, he knew that his horror towards his father's wish for eternal rest was entirely selfish. He loved his father, so he didn't want to let him go. Ever since Zeref had reached out to him and offered him a home, he had been by his side. He did not know what he would do in a world without him. The thought of a day, a week, a year without that kind and steady presence in his life felt like standing on the edge of a precipice; a world that had always been so safe grown suddenly large enough to boast fatal falls.

At the same time, no one else could comprehend how much Zeref had suffered. If the other mages of Alvarez saw him as nothing but a wise, composed and brilliant emperor, it was only because he left his country when the curse's effects were strongest, and did not return until he had once again recovered the mindset that gave him control. None of them had seen him wander, lost and useless and so very lonely, for he took care that they would not see him like that; see him as seeped in despair as August was seeing him right now.

Zeref's desire wasn't an impulsive decision. Reality had been slowly wringing the hope out of him for centuries, and it was enough of a miracle that any humanity was left in him at all. His father had suffered enough.

Maybe he should just let him do it, then. If it was the only way Zeref could be free… if the choice was between a world in which August had never been born, and no world at all… wouldn't it be better to let the past four hundred years come undone? That was what he'd said to the bound and broken Erza, back when he'd been trying to convince her to help him – back when he would have executed anyone who suggested that that dreadful yet safely hypothetical scenario would ever come to be.

And Erza had agreed… but only after a hundred and thirteen days spent watching the world go to hell. Everyone she had ever known had died. She had become so inured to it all that she could watch the torture and murder of those she had once loved with the same disinterest she would give Zeref's mad demands.

The world she had been willing to sacrifice was not the world he had now.

He thought about his mother's guild – how inspiring their unity had been; how beautiful the comfort they had found in each other after Gildarts's death; how they hadn't given up on him despite his own part in that tragedy. They hadn't trusted him at first in any timeline, but they had always given him a chance. They had shown his friends a mercy unlikely to have been granted to them in return. Even if he never met them this time round, he would always be grateful that he had been given the chance to make amends with them.

He thought about Ajeel, and all the other friends, colleagues, and former students he had tried to save by forcibly removing them from the war. He didn't feel as though his actions had been wrong – Erza's words of assurance stayed with him even now. But in another sense, Ajeel's scathing castigation had hit the mark. He should have explained everything to them at the first chance he had, and let them make their own choices. Just because he was the only one to travel through time didn't mean he had to fix everything on his own. If he had listened back then, it might not have taken him so long to realize he could always ask his father for help.

He thought about Cana, who had not blamed him for failing but thanked him for trying, and who had given him the courage to reach out to his own father. She had asked him to save Gildarts if he got another chance, and he'd been given one.

He thought about Erza, who had placed the hope of the guild upon an enemy's shoulders when she had named him Tenth Master. She had volunteered to take his place when they thought Zeref had come to kill him, and even turning her down had not stopped her from throwing herself between him and death magic without a second thought.

He thought about Mavis.

Her smile as she'd welcomed him into her guild, bright with the warmth of rebirth.

The enthusiasm with which she'd untangled his story of the first war and reworked it into a resounding tale of victory, encouraging her guild as much with her joyful presence as with her strategizing.

How she'd cried when she'd realized her feelings for Zeref were love, and how no volume of tears had been sufficient to douse her smile.

How she'd entrusted everything to him, not once, not twice, but three times over. It was the only request his mother had ever made of him, but he knew now that it wasn't just for her sake that he intended to see it through.

"No," August said, slowly shaking his head. "I can't allow that. If you truly want to die, that decision is yours alone, but the price you propose is unacceptable. There is so much hope and trust and happiness in this world… and it doesn't belong to you. Those of us who are alive right now have the right to decide our own future, and if we have to wrench it from Acnologia's jaws, that's what we're going to do. The world isn't mine to give you any more than it is yours to take."

Another long pause followed his declaration, but this time, it didn't scare him. Eventually, Zeref turned to face him again, and to August's great astonishment, there was a wistful smile upon his lips.

"I am certain that is not the answer you would have given twenty-four hours ago," said he. "Twenty-four hours as I would count them, that is. I have never known you to be so positive about the world and its future before."

"I have spent a lot of time with Fairy Tail recently," August replied. "I have met some wonderful people who will never remember meeting me."

Zeref made a disgruntled noise. "One way or another, it definitely comes from your mother's side."

August glanced at him in shock. For him to make such a casual comment about the topic they had both very deliberately not been talking about… did that mean he was starting to accept it?

As if Zeref had read his mind – although he imagined his expression was conveying his thoughts right now without any need for telepathy – he said, "I will admit I am becoming a little more accustomed to the idea. Only a little, mind."

August tried not to look as though that tiny concession meant the world to him and had no doubt he was failing miserably.

"Had you not already told me she still lives," Zeref continued softly, "I would have been heartened to hear that that part of her had lived on."

A thought occurred to August, and he said, "You had hope for the world too, once, didn't you?"

Zeref's gaze snapped to his at once. "What do you mean?"

"You built this empire long before you knew of Fairy Heart's existence. You laid the foundations for it centuries before you and Mavis even met, and you were content to let it thrive in times of peace. It was never intended to be an instrument of destruction."

"I am not so sure about that," Zeref warned him, but August's response came back twice as steadfast as before.

"I am. I have seen it. I know that you wanted to build a nation capable of fighting Acnologia if all else failed… one last chance for this world to free itself from the apocalypse incarnate. That is not the act of a man who despaired of the world around him."

That black gaze locked onto him, and it felt like being held at knifepoint. But Zeref simply sighed again, and grumbled, "I'll grant that I don't know much about being a father, but I'm fairly sure memories aren't supposed to be hereditary."

"I know," he said, trying not to smile. "I'm sorry."

They lapsed into silence again, watching the city side by side. In the distance, a fleet of airships took to the sky like silver birds of prey. Closer to home, someone within the palace grounds – Ajeel, no doubt – had grown bored while waiting for the order to march, and had roped some hapless colleague into a practice battle. Good-natured shouting and the warm taste of magic drifted up to their balcony.

But out there between the palace and the airships lay an entire city: thousands upon thousands of people barely noticing the army's late departure, who would keep the shops bursting with colour and the schools bubbling with energy and the guilds leading magical research and the hearths warm and the dreams rich and the children smiling whether their nation conquered the world or not; all the people just _living_ in the world spread out before them.

"Look at what you've built," August said, his voice thick with emotion.

" _We_ ," Zeref corrected. "I wasn't alone, was I? Not this past century. You've kept it safe for me all this time. If you hadn't, it would have fallen apart the first time I had to leave."

"But none of this would exist if not for you. The world is a far better place for you having been in it all this time. If you have forgotten your love for it, it is only because you had to, to keep it safe."

"Perhaps." After all his protests, Zeref's soft agreement surprised him. "But if we are to continue protecting it, I have to die."

August closed his eyes. He knew his father was right, but that didn't make it easier to admit out loud.

"Still," Zeref mused, "I'm beginning to think it won't matter soon, anyway." Before August could ask what he meant by that, Zeref's gaze flicked across to him. "I want to see Mavis. I want to tell her." Then, suddenly anxious, he added, " _Can_ I tell her?"

"Yes," he whispered. "Please… please do."

"Do you think… do you think she'll want to talk to me?"

"She'll definitely want to." August answered without hesitation, recalling his conversation with her on board the airship in a previous future. She had been waiting to apologize for almost a century. She trusted him. "She will want to see you, even if her guild is opposed to you spending time with her alone."

"That's her choice, not theirs. The least I can do is ask her."

"Can I come?"

"Stay here," Zeref interrupted. The old, imperial command had jumped back into his tone, and he winced at it, as if it tasted somehow sour. Hesitantly, he added, "Please."

"You will always be my emperor," August reassured him. "If you wish for me to stay, I will stay."

Zeref nodded uncomfortably, but let the matter go. "I hope she will agree to return to Vistarion with me, but I need to talk to her in private first. I would appreciate it if you could stop my army from leaving Alvarez, or indeed doing anything stupid at all, until my return."

"I will."

* * *

The wait wasn't as bad as August feared.

Oh, he didn't bother trying to rest even when his feet started to ache from the pacing, and the gnawing anxiousness had worn time so thin that he had actually started looking forward to Ajeel's periodic attempts to get out of him the truth of why their emperor had left the palace, but there was another sense in which his stress was entirely superficial. The most unquiet part of him had finally found peace.

Zeref knew the truth. Perhaps he wasn't hugely accepting of it, but he acknowledged it, and more than that – he was allowing it to change their relationship, just a little. He hadn't pushed August away because of it, but had tried to incorporate as much of it as he could manage into what they already had.

Whatever came next, August knew he would always have that.

He had lost track of time long before the servant came by to tell him that their emperor had returned. After waiting so long for the call, he felt he had earnt a minute or two to compose himself. He couldn't quite remember the last time he had got a full night's sleep – only that it had been several timelines ago – but despite that, he was proud to say that he looked fit to greet his emperor.

It lasted only until he reached the council chamber.

Mavis ambushed him the moment he set foot inside. In a blur of silver and gold, of emotion she could not express except through action so startlingly vivid, she was upon him, small arms wrapped so tightly around him that he half-wondered if she was trying to find out if immortality could be inherited.

Bemused, he wasn't sure whether to embrace her back like family or respectfully step away like the strangers they technically were. Zeref was watching them, doing his best not to smile. Something almost sacred flickered in his eyes.

Then the sound of sniffling reached August's ears, and nothing else mattered. Mavis pressed her forehead against his chest, trembling. "I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry-!"

"It's okay," he tried to soothe her. "It's not as though… you couldn't have known…"

How was he supposed to convey to her that she had done nothing, _nothing,_ wrong? He had never wanted to see her so upset, least of all because of him. Sensing he wasn't getting anywhere with words, he returned her embrace instinctively, hoping to repay all the comfort he had received from her in the last timeline. Her shaking slowly eased as she leaned against him, and it was enough to send his heart soaring.

"I'm sorry I was never there for you," she sobbed. "That all this time, I never even knew you existed…"

"That's not your fault," he insisted. "You're not to blame for anything."

"I wish I could have known you," she whispered. "Zeref told me a bit about you on the flight here, but… it's not enough. Nowhere near enough. He says you've been through so much… And now that I'm finally here with you, my throat's doing this stupid lumpy thing and my jaw hurts and it's so hard to talk with a physical body! I knew I should have stayed as a ghost, but I _had_ to be able to touch you, or I don't think I could have believed you were real…"

He couldn't help laughing, even if it came out like a sob. "I know. It's okay."

"There's so much I want to talk to you about… and yet it all seems so trivial."

"Same here," he murmured. "I have always longed to meet you properly, and now… I do not know what to say." He held her still tighter. There was no other way to express the burning need to keep her close and never let her go.

"I need more time," she muttered. "I don't _have_ more time. I don't want to hurt you, but I couldn't have passed up my only chance to meet you… to apologize for everything that _wasn't…_ "

"You have done far more for me than you know," he assured her.

"In the other futures?" A small smile touched her lips. "I wish I could remember them. Having more memories of you to take with me would make up for any amount of tragedy I might have experienced in those timelines. Still…"

She stepped away from him. Not yet accustomed to thinking of herself as a mother, her eyes were those of a general, a friend, a founder whose legacy lived on as the greatest guild on the continent, and they shone with ardent hope. "Have you been happy?"

"Yes," he answered, with all his heart.

"Then that's all I need," she told him.

And she jumped into his arms again, as if she couldn't stand to be any further away than was necessary; as if to make up for almost a hundred years of separation. The love she sought to pass to him was tangible.

"Mavis," Zeref interjected quietly; a warning.

A moment later, August sensed it too – a disturbance in the presence of her magic; an anomaly awakening from sleep. His eyes widened, as much with wonder as with panic. He loved her more than anything, but she had only just discovered that she had a son, only just met him in this world, and surely she couldn't- couldn't care about him that much- couldn't _want_ him as family-

"August." It was him that Zeref addressed this time, as calm and reassuring as ever, and he knew that everything was going to be okay. His father would take care of it. "Could you give us some space, please?"

"I'm sorry," Mavis sobbed. "I thought I'd have more time- but-"

 _I don't want to hurt you,_ she had said. She had been expecting this; she had known that they would get no more than a few minutes together, and that if they were lucky. Mavis's curse had been numbed through time and her own inability to feel, but right now every word she spoke came from the heart, and it could go out of control at any moment.

"It's okay," August reassured her once again. With every sincere word, he tried to convey to her that he _understood._ The curse that made her dangerous wasn't her fault at all. If she had to stay away from other people to recover, he would give her as much space as she needed, just as he had never resented the long periods his father had needed to spend away from the empire as he was growing up. She cared about him, and that knowledge would keep him strong, no matter how long it took for them to work this out. "I understand. I'll see you soon."

She raised her head, and there on her face was the saddest smile he had ever seen. For a moment, he thought she wasn't going to let go, but Zeref whispered her name again and at last she did, stepping away from him and giving a single jerky nod. Not wanting to be apart from her for a moment more than necessary, but not wanting to make this any harder for her either, he tore his gaze away from her and walked back through the chamber.

There, he found with some surprise that Zeref had followed him to the door. Curious, he waited to see what his father wanted, but rather than a request or a warning, his father hovered there in silence. The palace seemed far too big for him; his imperial robes far too grand – not an emperor destined to conquer the globe, but a man whose entire world was in the room with him right now. His black eyes held all emotions and none within their unfathomable depths.

Zeref looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end, he did not. The door between them closed without a word.

* * *

Long after August had departed, Zeref continued to stare, unmoving, at the closed door. He might have stayed there forever, frozen in an empty state, had Mavis not murmured, "You didn't tell him, did you?"

And just like that, Zeref seemed to break in two. The ice shattered. His composure was revealed as nothing more than a pretence; the mask of the emperor, which had kept the curse under control for so many years, lay in a million pieces at his feet.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed, between scrabbled, gasping breaths. "I couldn't- I couldn't say goodbye _-_ I'm sorry-"

His eyes screwed shut in pain – and a small hand touched his cheek. "He'll be alright," Mavis said. "Do not forget how strong he has been for you, all these years. He'll be alright without us _."_

"I know," he whispered, in a voice that trembled as much as he did.

"He'll understand," she promised him. "If not today, it would only be tomorrow, or the day after… at a time when we might do far more damage than right now."

Her smile had not lost its singular power to make everything right with the world. His next words were a little stronger, although no one seeing him in that moment would have believed he and the Black Mage were one and the same.

"This is your last chance to leave, Mavis."

Still smiling, she gave a slow shake of her head. "I already made my choice. Better one minute with my family than another hundred years without. I'm not going anywhere except with you, Zeref."

Sniffing, he raised his hand and pawed at his tear-stained cheeks, for all the good it did. "I- I don't think I've ever been happier than I am right now. It is more than I ever could have hoped for, to be… to be able to go like this."

Even after all these years, they truly loved each other. She had simply needed a little help to realize it, and he a little faith to accept the truth of it.

It was not a love without consequence. Zeref had known that when he had gone to see Mavis, and Mavis had known that when she had agreed to return to Vistarion with him. She, who would never again belong in her guild, and he, who would never be able to love his country without destroying it, had chosen each other knowing full well what it would mean.

"Me too," Mavis confirmed. Then her radiance dimmed a little, and she said, "I wish we truly could have been together. All three of us."

"I meant every word I said, on that day. I wish we could have run away together and built a world all our own."

Mavis took his hands in hers, shaking her head. "While we're dreaming, I wish we wouldn't have _had_ to run from everything. I wish we could all have been together, your friends and mine, your legacy and mine, the country you love and the guild I love – we'd have had no shortage of places to call home, you and I."

Tears prickled like stardust in his eyes. "I would have given you all of that, if I could."

"I know," she whispered. "And you did. Even if it was for such a short time, I had a family… thank you."

Magic too pure to be tainted with the black of despair wrapped heavenly wings around them both. Neither needed to ask if the other was ready. Their world was complete.

"I love you, Zeref. Thank you for giving me another chance."

"I love you, Mavis. Thank you for accepting me."

Without doubt, without hesitation. With no blame for what had happened, and with nothing but hope for the world they were leaving behind – the world that had abused them and yet led them to each other; the world whose darkness they had reshaped into something beautiful, something that would endure long after they had left it. Something they were proud to claim as their legacy. Something they could feel safe leaving to those who would succeed them.

After a lifetime of despair, they were free to die in hope.

There in the heart of Alvarez, in the nation founded by one man, two lives blazed divine and then burnt out.


	13. The Day Your Life Begins

**State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Thirteen: The Day Your Life Begins**

There was one person who didn't feel a fundamental sense of peace as the pillar of light enveloped the palace.

One person who stood outside the blazing chamber, even though a minute earlier, he would have been at the heart of that heavenly blessing himself.

One person who knew what it truly meant.

The scream tore from August's lips like a chained hawk. The harder it tried to ascend to the heavens with them, the harder it was pulled back down to earth.

This couldn't be happening. Not when he'd only just met them. Not when they were finally together.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was tearing back down the corridor like a terrified child. He had to run- to reach that light before it was too late- to stop it, to join it, _anything_ to not be left here alone-

He flung open the doors to the chamber where his parents were.

Where they _should have been_.

The chamber was empty. They were gone.

They had left him behind.

Traces of that magic remained, an unearthly gold, an angelic serenity, but it was only an echo of her warmth and his kindness and he hated hated _hated_ it.

Another scream cut itself free from his throat. This one was a bird of steel with blades for feathers, but he paid no heed to the gashes it left in its wake. He did not stop for the sound of running footsteps, and if someone had not given his shoulder a frantic shake – Invel – he might have screamed until he passed out, and been glad of the fall.

"What's going on?" Invel demanded. The Chief of Staff's tie was askew, his coat was only half-buttoned, and the ice-blue of his irises looked frazzled around the edges. "What was that light? Where's His Majesty?"

"Gone," August choked out.

"What do you mean, gone?" This question was Ajeel's, who had also come to investigate the disturbance. "I'm sure I saw his ship returning from Ishgar. Isn't he here yet?"

"He's gone. He's not coming back. He left me."

It couldn't be real. He'd found the courage to tell his parents the truth, and they'd accepted him, so why had it ended this way? One awkward conversation with his father, a handful of minutes with his mother – after everything he'd been through, after all those false starts and tragic endings and _ninety years of waiting_ , was that all the happiness he had earned?

"He left?" Ajeel persisted. "What are you talking about?"

"He died!" August howled.

He must have sensed them exchanging a glance, for he certainly couldn't have seen it through the veil of tears.

Baffled, Invel pointed out, "His Majesty is immortal. He cannot die."

"Mavis's curse killed him. His curse killed her. Just when we were finally together, he- he-"

Then the words just stopped coming. Flightless thoughts tumbled into oblivion. Sentiments broke apart on his tongue. They made about as much sense as the world did right now.

From a million miles away, over the thrashing of wings in his ears, he caught snatches of speech.

"-saw him in the palace with a girl-"

"-the carrier of Fairy Heart-"

"-pretended to surrender-"

"-murderer-"

He felt a bizarre urge to laugh at how meaningless their discussion was.

His father was everything to him. From the moment Zeref had extended his hand to the lost little boy, offering him a home and a life worth fighting for, August had known exactly why he – the child born of two cursed outcasts – had been allowed to live. He, who deserved nothing, had been given back his father – and with him, the world.

Zeref had been the first person to ever show him kindness. And he had never stopped doing so, either – the trust with which he had invited the peculiar if powerful child into his home was the same trust that had given him command of the vanguard during the Southern Rebellions; made him leader of the Spriggan Twelve; allowed Zeref to leave his empire for as long as he needed when things became difficult, safe in the knowledge that it would still be stable and loyal upon his return.

August had found his place, and it was at his father's side. Running away had only made it clearer that this was where he was loved. If he had stopped and spoken to his father on that day, rather than fleeing impulsively, he would never have left at all.

There he had lived for ninety years. And there he should have died.

Without Zeref, he had nothing. No one to serve. No one to love. Nothing to protect.

He had spent all his life striving to help his father realise his dreams – whether that was founding the Alvarez Empire, obtaining Fairy Heart, or reuniting with Mavis – all in a vain attempt to repay the infinite debt he owed to him.

Now that his father was gone, there was no reason for him to be here at all.

In another life, he might have run to Fairy Tail… but Mavis was gone too, and neither Erza nor Cana knew him in this timeline. There was nothing for him there, either.

Nothing.

The power to reset time had never belonged to him. Fairy Heart had vanished when Mavis had; the act he wanted to undo the most the only one that could never be undone. The world without his father in it was the only world he had.

He should have gone with them. He should have died alongside those he loved, surrounded by his family for the first and only time; the perfect death he could not even have dreamed of before that day.

Slowly, his shaking eased. He had not realised that the weight of it had pushed him to his knees, and now he climbed back to his feet, his every movement deliberate. He was alone. Invel and Ajeel must have reached some sort of conclusion and left him to his grief.

That was good. That would make it easier.

Zeref had sent him away without even saying goodbye. He had found peace with the one he loved, and in doing so, had denied August the chance of ever finding his own happiness. But there was one thing he had forgotten to account for: August was mortal. It would take him mere moments to do what had taken his father four hundred years.

"Wait for me," he whispered.

He strode from the chamber, a plan already solidifying in his mind. It would have to be something big, something final, something that would ensure the empire never forgot his grief. He would shatter the proud symbol of the nation he and his father had built. He would take an airship and crash it into the palace. After all, it was the death of one of his closest friends in an airship crash that had triggered this disaster in the first place, leading to countless deaths in countless timelines, until the two people who meant more to him than life itself had been stolen away by it.

Yes, that had dragged him into this. It would also be his escape.

Zeref's personal airship was still parked on the lawn, where he had left it in a hurry after fetching Mavis from Magnolia. August altered his path to avoid it automatically, intending to retrieve his own ship from the hangar, but paused. It wasn't as if Zeref needed his imperial ship any more, was it?

That bitter thought spurred him onwards. He had spent his entire life nurturing this empire on his father's behalf, only for Zeref to abandon him at the very end. This place, the physical manifestation of their bond, ought to die with him.

His heart was set in a moment of desperation, and nothing in the world could break it.

So he would have said, before his eyes fell upon the envelope left on the pilot's seat. The envelope which bore his name in elegant black writing.

It took several seconds for him to notice it. So intent was he on reaching that final freedom that he hadn't stopped for such trivial things as _sitting down_ to fly the airship, and he was at the level of the palace's highest tower and still rising when he saw it.

The wave of hate that burst from him was so strong, it was a wonder it didn't send the envelope flying out into space.

But no, it remained stubbornly sat there; one final insult from the world beyond. He seized it in one hand and commanded the ship to hover with the other, fully intending to go no further until he had banished it from his sight. He stepped out onto the deck – that copy of the space where Mavis had spoken of her love; where Cana had not cried over her own father's death.

"If you had something to say to me, you should have said it to my face!" August howled, a wolf chasing away the moon's worthless light. He held the crumpled envelope out over the edge like he might threaten an enemy with the fall into oblivion. "You're a coward! Do you really think I'm going to listen to a word you say, after everything you've done? Come back and tell me yourself, damn you! _Come back to me!_ "

He collapsed against the railings, sinking into a crumpled heap at their foot.

"You can't do this to me," he choked. "Not after everything- you can't-"

He was already flattening out the envelope, reaching inside, unfolding the letter within.

"It's not fair," he sobbed, as the tears flew down his cheeks.

Because it wasn't. It didn't matter how desperate his resolve; how frantic his need to no longer be in this world. His love for his father would always be stronger.

If Zeref wanted to speak to him one last time, he would listen.

* * *

 _Dear August,_

 _I hope you will forgive me for writing this down, but you must understand that I cannot even think these things in your presence, let alone say them. I did not lie to you when I told you I did not know how I feel about all this, but if there is one thing I do know, it is that it has never been more difficult for me to convince myself I do not care. I write to you because I am not certain the curse will ever let me to speak to you safely again, if indeed the opportunity arises._

 _It is the strangest thing. When I think about it logically, how I feel about you shouldn't have changed._

 _You are still the same person you were yesterday. A little more isolated, perhaps, for having lived through a time no one else remembers, and a little wiser for it also. But if anything, all that that has done is made clear to you parts of yourself that were already eminently visible to others; to me. You have always had the power to stand on your own. That is why I chose you. Discovering that you are my son by blood as well as by spirit shouldn't change how I feel about you._

 _And yet, it has._

 _It has, because I cannot stop thinking about what could have been._

 _Not once in four hundred years did the thought of having a family of my own ever cross my mind. Subconsciously, I probably assumed it was impossible, given the nature of my cursed body, but that alone does not explain why I never once shared the most human of aspirations._

 _For me, family has always been in the past. Something I had lost. Something I had paid an extortionate price to try and get back, and by the time I brought to life a little brother who did not remember me, let alone love me, I was too numb to it all to see him as anything more than a means to end my own life. The absence of family was something I had come to accept as a fundamental part of me, one it never occurred to me to imagine myself without._

 _That only went double after Mavis died. After so many years of knowing better, I had allowed myself to love again, and it hurt every bit as much as it ought. That was a mistake I wouldn't make again. There was nothing but darkness in my future; all my light was in the past. That is most likely why I was willing to go to such lengths to reset the world, although you are right to tell me it does not justify it._

 _It did not occur to me that there could be light in my future too. Had I known that Mavis lived, I could have waited an eternity for her. Had I known about you… there is so much I might have done differently. What would have become, if I had spent my life looking forwards instead of back?_

 _I wish we could have truly been a family, you and Mavis and I._

 _I wish you had told me sooner, but I understand why you didn't. I am sure that if you had, I would have pushed you away, or by not doing so, killed you. It is only because you kept it to yourself that we were able to be together at all._

 _And I know, as well, that even stating such a desire is selfish. I cannot imagine how much pain you have been in all this time. Being so close and yet unable to tell me, knowing it would destroy all that we had… I do not know how you could bear it._

 _I would apologise, were I not certain you would refuse to accept my apology._

 _You may not, however, refuse my gratitude._

 _Thank you for being by my side all this time._

 _Thank you for being the one I could always rely on – for telling me when I was wrong, and for believing in me when I didn't always deserve it. Thank you for being here when I couldn't be. This country belongs as much to you as it does to me._

 _And that, I fear, brings me to the business I must discuss with you while I still can._

 _This is not easy to write, but knowing that most of it will already have come to pass by the time you read this letter makes it a little more bearable. Mavis and I will kill each other. It is inevitable. Her curse will overcome my immortality, and mine hers; we accept and welcome this as a consequence of staying together. It is what we both want. Being able to move on together is more than either of us could have hoped for in a hundred years of separation._

 _Neither of us belong in this world. I have to go, because if I do not, I will end up destroying everything – and I don't want that to happen. I want to protect the country we've built. I want to protect you, too, in the only way I know how. I will not let this curse take away anything else that I hold dear._

 _Mavis wants to meet you. Then, I think, we will go._

 _It is the nature of this curse – and the volatility of the emotions upon which it depends – that we do not get to choose our moment; we must take what we are given or lose it forever. We are having to stay as far from each other as possible on the airship just to ensure we both survive long enough to reach Vistarion. Certainly, nothing could live in this cabin as I write._

 _We would both like to spend more time with you, but we do not have that luxury, and we are not willing to risk your life for our own selfish desires. Nor do we have much time to put our affairs in order, which is the other reason why I must write to you while I can._

 _I want you to take over Alvarez when I am gone. This would have been my decision whether you were my blood heir or not. No one knows this country like you do, and no one is better placed to guide it towards the future. I have said before, and I will say again, that this is your country as much as it is mine – and more, for I hope it has been the home for you it never truly was for me._

 _I will include a second letter to state this formally, but which avoids the truth of your inheritance, for that is your secret to tell. Whether you choose to show it to the others – that is up to you. Whether they will accept you as their leader even if you do – well, that will be up to you, too. It may not be easy to convince them, given the suddenness of my departure and the lack of any formal mechanism of succession, but I have no doubt that you will succeed if you try. They need only know you a fraction as well as I do to see that you are the greatest light this country has ever produced._

 _I have altered the magical connections between myself, Natsu and Larcade so that they will pass to you upon my death. Those two do not deserve to die because of my selfishness. I am certain that you have inherited enough of my magic to sustain the demonic bonds keeping them alive. Furthermore, I believe it should be possible to untether their lives from yours so that they can live independently, although I have not had the inclination to research it before today and I do not have the time to do so now. You know where my libraries are. How much you choose to tell them, if anything, is entirely in your hands._

 _I am aware that I am leaving without having fulfilled my goal of stopping Acnologia. However, I have done all I can in bringing the Dragon Slayers to this time, and Mavis assures me that Fairy Tail has it covered. Personally, I have a little more faith in our air fleet, but having Fairy Tail's Dragon Slayers back us up can only help. If such a coalition will be possible given the current predicament, I do not know. I am aware that this is probably the hardest thing I have asked of you, but while it would be foolish of me to declare that I suddenly have faith in this world, I do have faith in you to lead it to victory._

 _I am sure you are angry with me right now. Being asked to sort out my unfinished business – business that involves stopping all-out war and preventing the destruction of the world – when I know full well that if I learnt now of your death like you must learn of mine, all I would want to do is curl up in a corner and pray that I might disappear… I hate myself for making such a request of you, and I imagine it is a mere shadow of how you must feel towards me, but I will ask you to hear me out nonetheless._

 _It is safe to say that in four hundred years I have never learnt to cope with loss. Pushing away the value of others' lives only made it a thousand times worse when I lost the one person I truly treasured. I lost count of how many times I tried to end my own life in the weeks after Mavis's death. It scares me even now._

 _Perhaps you will consider me a hypocrite to tell you to live when I would not have done so myself unless forced. Perhaps you think I have no right to deny you the final peace I am about to claim for myself._

 _To that, I will say only this: you are not me._

 _No, you are nothing like me, and that is something for which I find myself exceedingly grateful._

 _My life has always been devoid of meaning. You told me I had hope once, and I think you are right, but that does not change the fact that I lost it long ago. All the things that make life worth living – friends, family, dreams, ambitions, and the ability to see beauty in the world – I have long since forgotten what it is like to believe in such things._

 _But listening to you, I remembered._

 _Everything you told me about your journey through other futures made me remember. How determined you were to save all those I let die, no matter how they treated you in return. How much it meant to you to earn the trust of Mavis's guild. How much being unable to repay Cana hurt you, and how much Erza's willingness to die for you changed you. You care about these people in a way I never could._

 _I have always wanted to die for my own sake, but listening to you made me consider my life in relation to everything else for the first time. Knowing that my death is necessary to protect the world you love is why I can face the end in peace. Without me, the darkest of futures is no longer set for us in stone. You, and all those you care about, have the chance to flourish. It is them you must think of in the coming days, not me._

 _I have issued no command to stop the war. My people will fight without me – for vengeance, if nothing else. If you do nothing, many on both sides will die._

 _You will save them._

 _You will live._

 _There is more to your life than just Mavis and myself. I know it will be difficult for you to see that right now, but I also know that, no matter how much you might resent me for it, you will save them, and you will live._ _Let no one hold you back, and you will build the world I never could._

 _I am not so blind that I cannot see you have been living for me all these years. From now on, you must live for yourself._

 _ _This is the day your life begins.__

 _Your loving father,_

 _Zeref Dragneel._

 _P.S. Don't listen to Cana. She had it all backwards. Her father didn't love her enough to die for her. He loved her enough to want her to live, no matter what. It is a desire every bit as selfish as it is selfless, and I find I am coming to know it very well indeed._

* * *

August cursed out loud. He was already running back towards the bridge, one hand stowing his father's final letter safely within his robes, the other rubbing at his eyes, his expression trapped somewhere between a sob and a scowl and yet as far as possible from the resolute emptiness of before. "You didn't have to go that far… It's not like you at all…"

Even in death, Zeref was determined to get his way, wasn't he?

In case it hadn't been clear enough when he sent August away from him and Mavis, he had also left him instructions with an imperial expectation that they be seen through, pre-emptively countered any objections he could raise, and appealed to his loyalty as well as his love, until he had no choice but to keep living.

Oh, and he had also neglected to stop the war he had set in motion – a war which would result in the deaths of everyone August cared about if he still chose to follow his father into oblivion.

 _Enough to want her to live, no matter what, indeed,_ he thought dryly.

Throwing himself into the pilot's seat, he nudged the airship away from the great black palace and towards the open sky – and Ishgar far beyond.

The world without Zeref in it was still incomprehensibly large, but now that he had a task to focus on, the scale of it didn't seem to matter. Ajeel and Invel – and who knew how many others they had told by now? – believed Mavis had been sent by Fairy Tail to murder Zeref… and they had an army already poised to avenge him. He had to reach them before they could attack Fairy Tail.

Failing that… well, he would take things one step at a time. That was how he would get through this.

As soon as he came within range, he radioed Ajeel's ship. The brash young mage was undoubtedly the one leading the assault; he had done so in every timeline. August found himself wondering what would happen if he did not make it in time. Would Ajeel be shot down by a Jupiter cannon again? Had he come this far and confessed everything to Zeref, only to find himself unable to save his friends from the brutal fates awaiting them?

With a crackle of static, contact was made. Ajeel's voice rang out from the speakers. "Your Majesty? Is that you?"

The hope in it was a knife straight to August's gut. He wished he hadn't taken Zeref's airship, even if it was the only one which stood any chance of catching up to the army.

Closing his eyes briefly, he quashed the serpent of despair before it could raise its head. "No. It's me. I'm sorry, Ajeel. His Majesty is gone."

The crackling went on and on.

"I'm going to kill them all," Ajeel vowed.

"No!" he objected. Forcing a modicum of calmness into his voice, he went on, "This wasn't an attack. It was what Zeref – what His Majesty – wanted. He and Mavis moved on together. It had nothing to do with Fairy Tail, and they will be just as confused and as angry as you are right now."

"I don't believe that."

"I can explain everything, I promise. Just wait for me. Don't do anything rash."

"Rash?" Ajeel's laugh was almost a snarl. "Destroying this guild is exactly what His Majesty wanted!"

"No, it isn't! He never had anything against Fairy Tail! He only wanted Fairy Heart to use against Acnologia, and that no longer exists! We have no reason to be enemies!"

"They murdered His Majesty. I'm going to kill them all."

"Don't!" he yelled. "They have an amplified Jupiter cannon! If you attack alone, you will die!"

The line went dead.

Cursing, August struck the control panel, and double-checked that the airship was still flying at top speed as he tried to contact the rest of the Spriggan Twelve. Invel would not even allow his call to connect. While he was unlikely to do something as reckless as charging Fairy Tail's guildhall singlehandedly, if left unchecked he could easily lead the Alvarez force to a cold and calculated vengeance upon Fairy Tail, and that would be a hundred times more devastating than a kamikaze charge.

But he would worry about Invel later. Ajeel was the volatile one; the impassioned and devoted warrior whose death had triggered retaliation upon retaliation until the future had drowned in blood. He was the one who needed to live.

With every successive call that failed to connect, he felt his heart sink further. No level-headed ally would be flying in to help him defuse the situation. They were all beyond his reach, having left Vistarion long ago in preparation for their many-pronged attack upon the continent. Invel had the means to contact them, not him. In an ideal world, Invel would never have left His Majesty's side. In _this_ world, which until he'd read Zeref's letter had seemed the exact opposite of ideal and now had judgement pending, all August knew was that he was on his own.

Not for the first time, he wished he had access to the superior telepathic network that had helped Fairy Tail rally during the first war. Knowing that the other side had such technology was the kind of future knowledge that was only helpful if he was trying to beat them, not save them. Rather, as the blur that the map insisted was Magnolia began to resolve into roads and buildings, and above the earth's gentle curve one steel falcon separated from the hesitant fleet and plunged towards the guildhall, it became clear that witnessing the same tragedy twice over had not made him any more capable of preventing it.

He was too late. Too slow. Ajeel was refusing to heed his warnings. He was sure Erza would have listened to him in Mavis's absence, but he was far too late to broker a peace with their opponents now. He couldn't stop Ajeel from attacking the guildhall; he couldn't stop Fairy Tail from defending it.

It was going to happen exactly as it had the first time. He knew where Ajeel's death was coming from. He could see the sparkle of light on the hillside even now, but it was useless knowledge, because he still couldn't get there in time to stop it from firing.

Ajeel was going to die, _again_ , and that one death would bring a million more.

The Jupiter cannon blazed at full power, and everything else seemed to drop away. Suddenly, he knew exactly how to save Ajeel – but it would cost him his own life.

And if he died, wouldn't he lose any chance of preventing the war? He was the only one who wanted peace, after all. His death would spur his allies on; they would embrace the very annihilation he was trying to prevent. Wouldn't it be best to let it happen, and try to contain the damage afterwards?

Then, he smiled. That was undoubtedly the conclusion a strategist like Zeref would have reached.

 _You are nothing like me,_ Zeref had written. _And that is something for which I find myself exceedingly grateful._

As always, Zeref had it completely right. It didn't matter to August that this might well kill his hope of a peaceful union dead. The network of consequence unravelled; there was only _now._ His friend was about to die before his eyes-

 _-not realizing at first that the scorched shape he had just pushed away wasn't a piece of airship wreckage after all-_

-and that was all that mattered.

"Forgive me, Zeref," he whispered. "I may be coming to join you sooner than you wished."

As the Jupiter cannon fired, he smashed his ship straight into Ajeel's.

He had been approaching at an angle in his vain attempt to intercept Ajeel, and thus his final burst of speed drove him into the ship's vulnerable flank. Metal crumpled with horrifying ease. Ajeel's ship was flung sideways – out of the way.

Hurled forwards by the impact, August felt as though his life hung upon the straining seatbelt, unable to do anything but pray that no twisted shard of metal would skewer his body and _wait_ -

The Jupiter blast hit, and all the pain was white.

The heat of a thousand exploding suns pounded against his skin and was gone.

The white remained – a heavenly glow inside his eyelids – yet the pain had flared and faded almost immediately. He couldn't help but feel let down. Surely his magic, the magic which had held off Zeref's curse for several seconds, should have put up a better fight than that. Dying so quickly was just… disappointing.

Perhaps some small part of him had hoped to do the impossible, and survive the blast. His magic couldn't negate it, because it had been generated by an artefact rather than a living caster, and so he wouldn't logically have stood any more of a chance than Ajeel… but he had hoped anyway, because he'd wanted to live.

And maybe, just maybe, his wish was going to be granted.

As the seconds concertinaed by, long and then short and then long again, it seemed more and more likely that this was still the world of the living. He forced his eyes to open against Jupiter's light, and found it somehow dimmer than before.

The pain hadn't stopped because he had died. It had stopped because the energy blast he had flown straight into had split in two, diverting around the ship without touching it. Dark shapes began to solidify out of the haze: the control panel, the cabin walls… and a lone figure standing tall amidst the brilliant white.

He jumped to his feet and ran out onto the deck. The noise hit him first, and then the heat, yet he barely noticed either. The world could have been disintegrating around him and he still would have seen nothing but _her:_ shields raised, heart unbroken, magic indomitable; Erza Scarlet standing radiant at the prow of the ship.

 _Why?_

The white light of death faded as the cannon expended the last of its charge. The aquamarine magic circle that had deflected it endured a little longer – just long enough to leave no doubt that it had surpassed the best the cannon had to offer – before that faded too. Erza Requipped out of her battered Adamantine Armour as she turned to face him, and all he could do was stare.

She had saved his life before, but only after he had earned her trust. Until that point, she had been as aggressive towards him as she had to any enemy. He would have risked his life for her, but the events that had prompted their allegiance hadn't happened for her, so _why?_

"Why?" He whispered the question out loud. "We haven't even met yet."

Erza gave him a grave look. "Warren has been monitoring your fleet's communications. You're the one trying to stop all this, aren't you?"

"Yes, but…" he floundered. It was a struggle to stop himself from adding, _but aren't you worried it's a trap? Why do you trust an enemy you've never met?_

She heard those unspoken words, and yet there was not a flicker of doubt in her eyes. There hadn't been in any timeline. "Mavis knew, when she left with Zeref, that she wouldn't be coming back… and still she went with him gladly. They were never enemies. They were happy in the end, I think."

"They were," he confirmed quietly.

"Fairy Heart is no more. Zeref is gone. There is no reason for us to fight. If you threaten us, I will defend my home with everything I have, but I will not endanger my guild in an unnecessary war."

"Nor will I my country," August said. "Let me talk to Ajeel. We have no leader right now, but… I will do what I can."

Nodding once, Erza Requipped into a winged armour and jumped from the deck of the airship. August landed the singed ship in front of Fairy Tail's guildhall. The windows behind him brimmed with faces he recognised but who knew him only by reputation, and their apprehension fell over him like a shadow in the dawn – a shadow evaporated by Erza's steadfast luminescence, as she nodded to him once and entered the building to reassure her guild.

At the far end of the street, Ajeel had somehow landed his own ship safely, and he staggered free of the damaged hull. "You're with them!" he roared, pointing at his former mentor, far too outraged to be concerned by his own brush with death. "You're on Fairy Tail's side! How long have you been planning this?"

Then his eyes widened, as anguish forced him into an impossible leap: that August, of all people, had been responsible for their emperor's death. "You didn't-!"

"Don't be ridiculous," August snapped. "I am, and will always be, loyal to our empire. But His Majesty's fate has always been entwined with that of this guild. He did not want us to become enemies."

Ajeel's laughter was that of a mad dog. "He raised an army to crush them! If he'd lived another hour, he'd have led the invasion himself!"

"For centuries before he learnt of Fairy Heart's existence, he was content for us to live in peace with Ishgar. That changed only when he believed seizing it was necessary… and it is necessary no longer."

Another voice rang out loud and clear. "His Majesty was destined to rule the entire world. That's what Alvarez was _for_. You're standing in the way of his desire."

Invel had entered the street at the head of a wave of darkness – Alvarez footsoldiers, filling far too much of the town. The unease in the building behind him was tangible. August wondered how many mages Erza was having to physically restrain from launching a preemptive strike. His grip tightened around his staff, ready to deflect the first attack, whether it came from in front or behind.

When he spoke, though, his voice was as controlled as it had ever been. "No. You're the one who wanted Alvarez to conquer the entire world, Invel. Not His Majesty. To that end, you would have made him cut all ties with his past – something you know he would never do through choice."

The ice mage's eyes narrowed – after all, how could August possibly have known what he was secretly planning to do with Natsu and Gray if he hadn't seen it once already? Rather than giving him a chance to retaliate, August swept his gaze across to Ajeel.

"And you, Ajeel. You want this war because you want a chance to prove your power. His Majesty has never condoned fighting for the sake of fighting. That is your wish, not his. Think of God Serena, who is only here to fight Acnologia and does not care about Alvarez's future or His Majesty's will. Your determination to see this through on your own is no different to his."

He raised his hand, forestalling Ajeel's outrage with an authority he did not realise he had until it worked. "Tell me truly, Ajeel – how much of what you are doing right now is His Majesty's will, and how much of it is because you are hurting so much that you need someone to hate for it just to stop it from consuming you?"

An instant of vulnerability flashed through the young man's eyes.

"Our empire was founded to fight Acnologia," August continued. "It is a battle His Majesty has been preparing us to fight for a very long time. That is why we have developed military technology, pushed magic further than any civilization before, and built up an army of unparalleled discipline and might. And we were never meant to do it alone. Fairy Heart has vanished from the world, but Fairy Tail has three true Dragon Slayers, who live only because His Majesty sent them to this time from long ago. One of them is the most powerful demon His Majesty ever created. He never intended for these people to be our enemies.

"The temptation of Fairy Heart divided us, but that is gone now. Let us be divided no longer. Let us stand together against our common enemy, and fulfil the destiny His Majesty set out for us four hundred years ago. Let us save our world together – a world that has always been big enough for all of us."

"This is what you have chosen, then?" Invel said softly.

"It is. I will not allow the invasion to continue. If you insist upon attacking, I will stand with Fairy Tail, and I will fight every last one of you myself before I allow one member of that guild to come to harm."

Some deep iceberg shifted in the blueness of Invel's eyes. "You say that as though I have a choice."

That wasn't the response August had been expecting. "What do you mean?"

"His Majesty left everything to you, didn't he?" Invel asked, already knowing the answer. "He's always been different, when it comes to you."

August recalled the second letter Zeref had promised him – the one he had stuffed back into the envelope without reading in his haste to intercept the army – and, slowly, he nodded.

"Then I do not have a choice," Invel reiterated. "Whether His Majesty would have wanted to abort the invasion with Fairy Heart gone, I do not know for sure. I am certain, however, that he would have left the Alvarez Empire in your care, and trusted you to do what was right for us. I will honour his final wish. If you forbid the invasion, I will obey your command… Your Majesty."

August's eyes widened. His heart lurched; a world that had only just stabilised for him seemed one crack away from collapsing once more. It was too much, too soon. He was still reeling from his father's acceptance of him; still coming to terms with the unwanted continuation of his life into a world without him.

That wasn't his title, it would never be his title… but at the same time, it was what Zeref wanted. He had spent his last words making sure August understood that.

Tears tickled the corners of his eyes yet again. He nodded once in gratitude, and Invel returned it silently.

"You want me to just accept that he's gone?" Ajeel burst out, his frantic shriek clashing against their uneasy accord. His gaze darted to the waiting guildhall and back. "You want me to just walk away from them- from all of this?"

August stepped towards him. "Yes," he said. "If you want to repay His Majesty for everything he has given you, fight to protect all that he built from Acnologia. There will be no shortage of opportunities to prove yourself to him in that battle. And if, when that is over, you still seek a challenge, I know there are many in Fairy Tail who will prove to be worthy opponents if you face them in friendly competition, rather than in hate."

Ajeel shook his head fiercely, for he could not speak. His body was tense, as if at any second he might hurl his body and soul and magic at the guildhall in one last fateful charge – and yet he was utterly unable to look away from August, even for a moment.

"It is easy to lose yourself in hatred for an imagined enemy," August continued gently. "It is far harder to carry on living the best life you can. But remember, Ajeel – he chose you for the Twelve because he knew you wouldn't give up for anything. Do not forget that you are strong."

Ajeel screwed his eyes shut. His whole body trembled. August put his arm around his shoulders and drew him forwards, and for the first time since he had been a very small child indeed, the proud mage allowed his mentor and leader to pull him into a hug. Invel watched with the closest thing to approval in his expression that August reckoned he would see for a very long time.

"I want him back," Ajeel whispered. "Everything was so clear when he was around."

"I know," August murmured back. "It will take time, but we'll find our own way forward – and we'll make him proud. I promise you that."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** One chapter to go, and it's more of an epilogue, really. Thanks to everyone who has stayed with me this far. ~CS_


	14. Epilogue (State of Independence)

**State of Independence**

By CrimsonStarbird

* * *

 **Chapter Fourteen (Epilogue): State of Independence**

"That is quite a tale," Erza reflected, leaning back in her chair.

"I know," August agreed. Doubts flooded into the pause that followed, and he couldn't help adding, "But you do believe me, don't you?"

She raised her eyebrows. "I think I made my position on that matter quite clear when I jumped between you and the Jupiter cannon."

"I suppose you did."

"Still," Erza added, thoughtfully, "if all you say is true, that wasn't the first time I've saved your life."

"No," he confirmed softly. "It wasn't. And I won't ever forget that."

Erza glanced away. She hid her discomfort well, but he had seen it often enough in those he had told about the alternate futures to recognise the signs. No one liked the thought of being held accountable for decisions they themselves had not made… nor of being owed a debt for something they had not done.

Twenty-four hours had passed since the impromptu truce had formed between the Alvarez army – which he still could not think of as _his_ army – and Fairy Tail. Word of Zeref's death had spread swiftly amongst the imperial forces. The scattered members of the Spriggan Twelve had each come straight to Magnolia upon hearing the news, assuming as Ajeel had done that Fairy Tail was responsible. August had had the same conversation so many times now that he could explain his father's passing without having to fight off the urge to break down.

He had shown the others the second letter Zeref had left him, which, as promised, formally stated his intent for August to succeed him. Just as Invel had predicted, no one who had ever seen August together with his emperor had questioned its authenticity for a moment. If there was resentment, it wasn't at the thought of August being emperor so much as at the thought of _anyone_ who wasn't Zeref being emperor – a sentiment he shared whole-heartedly.

It was something he was trying not to think about, and there were so many other pressing matters that, for the time being, he was succeeding.

Acnologia was coming. That was his greatest concern. Reports of sightings were coming in from all across Ishgar, quickly confirmed by Alvarez scout teams. He moved erratically, sometimes as a dragon and sometimes as a man, but one thing was certain: Magnolia was his target.

Having seen how rapidly Acnologia had unleashed the deepest depths of hell upon Ishgar once before, August had more reason than most to fear him, and yet for once the calmness with which he reassured his friends and allies was not an act. Last time, both armies had torn each other to pieces before Acnologia had even shown himself. This time, the apocalypse would find them at full strength.

Acnologia was coming, but they were not alone. Not any more.

At his request, the Spriggan Twelve were staying in or around the guildhall in preparation for the final battle. Granted, some had integrated better than others. A brief glance around revealed that Lucy and Brandish were _still_ chatting about something or other at the bar, while a grinning Natsu was busy drawing felt-tip glasses on an unconscious Ajeel, whose third attempt at challenging Laxus hadn't gone any better than the first two. Others were conspicuously absent. He had a feeling Larcade was avoiding him, while Irene was probably avoiding someone else entirely. Still, he had no doubt that they would return once the battle began.

Most of their troops had been sent back home – a joint decision by all the Twelve, since he did not feel ready to assume direct command of the army himself. Strong individuals who could look after themselves would be of far more value against this opponent than great numbers. The air fleet remained, having set up temporary camp outside the city, and a proportion of the naval fleet had been distributed along the coast. No one knew quite where the final struggle against the apocalypse would take them.

Likewise, Fairy Tail had notified their allies from across Fiore, who had unanimously pledged their support to the coalition and were ready to move out at a moment's notice. Two hours ago, Sabertooth's Dragon Slayers had arrived in Fairy Tail, meaning that all the Dragon Slayers sent here from the past were finally gathered in one place. Even though he had no personal connection with those two, August couldn't help but feel his heart lift when they arrived. They were living hope; a physical reminder that Zeref had once believed in the future of this world.

Yes, Acnologia was coming – but this time, they were ready for him.

After all, even with Zeref and Mavis gone, there was no shortage of strategists on both sides. They already had a good ten or so plans in the works to take down the Dragon of the Apocalypse. In fact, August and Erza were currently having their discussion in the quietest corner of the guildhall rather than the privacy of the Master's office because Invel and Makarov had commandeered it to work on Plan Eleven in peace.

August himself had dropped out of the strategising the previous night, when the pressure of the past few days had finally caught up with him. By the time he had awoken from the first real rest he'd had in a while, things had moved on without him – something he was content to encourage, although colleagues old and new still came to him with ideas. One of the most promising plans called for the use of Fairy Sphere, and he had thrown himself into helping the Fairy Tail mages train for that – once they had got over their shock at an outsider being by far the most proficient wielder of their guild's magic. After all, he could hardly explain to them that he was not only the Tenth Master of their guild in a way that defied time, but also the sole heir to Mavis's magic.

There were, however, some things he _did_ have to explain. He might not have personally faced Acnologia the first time, but he'd heard reports from those who had. He had a better idea than anyone of which strategies would and wouldn't work against him. Revealing that knowledge would prompt all kinds of questions, none of which he particularly wanted to answer… but it had taken him far too long to ask Zeref for advice last time, and he wasn't going to make that mistake again.

That was why he had told Erza everything.

Absolutely everything.

He hadn't intended to, at first. He was only going to tell her about the time travel. Even that had felt like a lot, given that they had only just met in this timeline, but she had listened with sincerity, and above all, he found her reaction strangely reassuring _._ Before he knew it, he had told her everything about his father too.

It felt good to talk about it. He had expected it to be as hard to tell her as it had been to tell Zeref, but it wasn't, not at all. His father had accepted him, and compared to that, the reactions of other people didn't matter at all. The burden he had carried all his life was gone, and telling Erza felt like stretching those sore muscles in a new, tentative freedom. Erza – _this_ Erza – didn't know him, and wasn't involved in any of this, and still she reacted to it with the maturity and tact he had come to expect from her. He knew he'd made the right choice to confide in her.

She had promised not to tell anyone until he did so himself, and although he had immediately informed her that would never happen, a part of him was already wondering if it would really be so bad if his colleagues found out the truth. Maybe he'd consider telling them. Maybe, one day.

"Are you going to tell Cana?"

Erza's quiet question interrupted his thoughts. August frowned, his mind jumping to the conclusion that she was also thinking about Zeref, until she clarified, "About the last time you met her, I mean."

"I wasn't going to," he confessed. "I will always be grateful to her, but I do not think telling her would accomplish anything. Neither the scenario which bought about her death, nor that which brought about her father's, will happen this time around."

When this was met only by silence, he pressed, "Do you think I should?"

It was clear from his tone of voice that he would give great weight to her opinion, and perhaps that was why she considered it for some time before replying. "No. I also do not think there is anything to be gained by doing so. However, I feel I should warn you that if you stick too close to Cana during the coming battle in order to protect her, and Gildarts notices without knowing why, he'll likely hit you so hard you'll be knocked back to yesterday and have to do this all over again."

"If that's what it takes to keep her safe," August said mildly, and Erza snorted.

"We'll look after our own."

"I know you will."

He let his gaze run around the guildhall once more. It wasn't quite projecting the boisterous atmosphere he might have expected from the stories. Acnologia was coming, and the imminent apocalypse was felt in every muted clink of glasses; in the Request Board that had been shut down until further notice; in the battles being fought for training rather than brawls for fun. Yet the smiles were genuine and the beer free-flowing, and he knew that the grim portent that had gripped Fiore during the occupation would never gain a foothold while Fairy Tail lived.

"You've got a wonderful guild," he said, without thinking. "Mavis really was so proud of you."

"Is that you angling for your position as Tenth Master back?" she teased.

Smiling, he shook his head. "I sincerely hope that the Ninth Master outlives me in this timeline."

Erza gave a rueful smile of her own. "At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if the Eighth Master outlives both of us," she remarked, and he laughed.

"Still," she continued, as her expression became more somber. "I would say that you're welcome to stay here for as long as you'd like, if I didn't think you'd use it as an excuse to run away from your empire."

August winced. Had she always been able to see through him so easily? He thought back to his very first conversation with her – with a wounded Erza who had judged him complicit in the world's suffering, yet repentant enough to be worth trusting with her guild's future – and he thought that she probably had.

"I don't think I'm ready for this," he confessed.

"I don't think anyone ever is. I remember when I was made the Seventh Master. I had to keep telling myself that it was only a temporary measure until we got Master Makarov back – that it wasn't really leading the guild; it was just leading the mission to rescue him. That was the only way I got through it. Every time the thought that he might not come back crossed my mind, I froze up."

"You were fearless as the Ninth Master," he countered. "Your guild's faith in you was absolute. You led them into battle without faltering once."

"Was I, though?" she wondered darkly. "Or was I making it all up as I went along, hiding my terror behind the veneer of confidence I knew the guild needed to see?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Then perhaps it doesn't matter." Erza shrugged, leaning back once again. "I don't know you well by any means, but I have seen you risk your life to save your friend, and I know how much you love the country you and Zeref built. Don't lose sight of those two things, and you'll do fine."

"I appreciate the thought, but running an empire isn't like running a guild."

The edge that had broken into his voice didn't faze her in the slightest. "Regardless, Zeref believed you could do it."

"It should be him doing this. Not me. He guided Alvarez from the very beginning. How can I possibly live up to that?"

"No one said you had to. You're not him, and you need to stop trying to _be_ him. He said as much himself, didn't he? Focus on being the best leader that _you_ can be."

"People won't see it that way," August objected. "To us, he and Alvarez have always been one and the same. There will be those who would rather let the whole empire crumble to dust than be in the hands of another man."

"That's not what I see," Erza told him coolly. "I see Invel deferring to you. I see Ajeel trusting you. I see not a single member of the Twelve – not even God Serena – challenging your claim to leadership nor making plans to strike out on their own. I see Alvarez and Fairy Tail mages alike asking you for help with magic and bringing you ideas for the upcoming battle – and they don't even know about the time travel yet! They simply trust you to know what's right."

"That's not-" he tried to protest again, but she overrode him firmly.

"It wasn't Zeref who brokered international peace, August; it was _you_. If the first few hours of your reign are any indication, you are going to leave your father in the dust."

He couldn't speak at all, at first, and then he could do nothing but shake his head. "When Makarov finally retires, Erza, you are going to be one formidable Guild Master."

"By then, I'm sure you'll be showing me how it's done," she demurred.

August wasn't so sure about that, but he found that he felt a little less apprehensive about the future that waited beyond Acnologia, and he shook his head in wonder.

Silence fell – in their little corner, at least; true silence wasn't something that could exist in the same space as a relaxed Fairy Tail guild – and they watched the rest of the guild together. Ajeel had woken up, and was chasing a laughing Natsu between the tables. If his outrage was genuine rather than playful, well, Natsu didn't seem to notice – and besides, despite Erza's nonchalant posture, August had the feeling that if things turned vicious, she'd stop it even faster than he could.

"Speaking of telling people secrets," Erza began suddenly, "you came out with some interesting things when you were trying to get Invel and Ajeel to stand down."

"Did I?" August asked, although he knew exactly what Erza was referring to, and he had the sinking feeling that she did too.

"You did. Something about Fairy Tail having three Dragon Slayers sent through time by Zeref, one of whom who also happened to be Zeref's most powerful demon. Now, Lucy told me last night that she and her new friend Brandish had made some interesting discoveries about the Eclipse Gate and some time-travelling Dragon Slayers… but they didn't mention anything about demons."

When he did not respond, she prompted, "Is there anything else you'd like to get off your chest, while we're doing this?"

August grimaced. "It's difficult," he said, at last. "It isn't my story to tell, and yet I am likely the only person still able to tell it."

To his knowledge, Zeref had never spoken freely about his younger brother or his quest to bring him back to life. Invel knew a little, and so did Larcade, but that was mostly guesswork; neither had been told the full story. August himself knew only because there was very little of significance about Zeref's life that he had not picked up from the memories that weren't his own.

That honest response did not seem to be what Erza was looking for. "So you don't believe Natsu has a right to know the truth?"

He kept his expression neutral, refusing to give any sign that her guess at Natsu's involvement was correct, but she waved her hand impatiently. "Zeref has approached Natsu on multiple occasions, yet has shown no particular interest in the other Dragon Slayers. Besides… Natsu has already worked that much out for himself." She paused to indicate the boy in question, as his flying kick missed Ajeel and careened into Gray's cheek in a way that didn't seem at all accidental. "This, I think, is his way of convincing anyone else who has put two and two together that it doesn't change a thing."

Under her piercing gaze, he couldn't help but relent. "The problem is, there's far more to it than that, and I truly think he'd be happier not knowing. He doesn't need closure for a matter he knows nothing about. Telling him the truth will raise far more questions than it resolves – questions that can never be answered, now Zeref is gone."

"Hmm."

His shoulders sagged at her non-committal response. "I think it's better for him not to know, but what right do I have to make that decision? None at all, and yet I _have_ to make it."

"I cannot advise you, not knowing the truth of it myself," Erza frowned, tapping her finger upon the table.

August almost took the invitation, but changed his mind. It wasn't like sharing his own secret. If he was going to tell anyone, it should be Natsu first. Besides, he wasn't sure how comfortable he'd feel with anyone else knowing that Natsu's life was currently dependent on his. Just knowing it himself made him uneasy.

Maybe that should be his priority, then. After all, Zeref had mentioned that he thought it would be possible to untether the lives of the two living demons from his own. Once Acnologia was beaten, and things had settled down at home, he would dig out Zeref's early research notes and get to work.

If he couldn't find a way, he would bring the Book of END to Natsu, explain what it meant, and see if they could work out a solution together. Ideally, though, he would succeed. He wanted to be able to tell Natsu that he was free – free from Zeref's legacy; free to live whatever life he desired. Then, and only then, would he make the call on telling Natsu that Zeref had been his brother too.

"There's something I need to do first," he told Erza. "Once I have, I will reconsider telling Natsu everything."

She nodded reluctantly, and did not press the matter further. If he had previously doubted her assurance that Alvarez and Fairy Tail mages alike were trusting his decisions, watching her leave her good friend's future in his hands was all the proof he needed.

On the subject of the demons, though, he should probably talk to Larcade at some point. Unlike Natsu, Larcade knew full well that he should have died when Zeref did. In fact, being a pure demon, he had undoubtedly felt something when the bond had transferred from Zeref to August – maybe even enough to know _what_ had happened, if not _how._

Yet his colleague had not approached him since their emperor's death, no matter how many times August had caught him staring from across the guildhall. He supposed he only had himself to blame for that. He had never made any secret of his dislike for the demon – a dislike which seemed so trivial now. He had only been projecting his own self-loathing for being unable to tell his father the truth onto Larcade… which had been childish and pathetic. His situation hadn't been Larcade's fault any more than it had been Zeref's.

The last thing he wanted was to be an unapproachable ruler. Zeref hadn't been – whenever he was in his empire, at least – and the grief they all felt at his death was genuine. As for himself, his students and colleagues had always been precious to him, and he was determined not to lose them as he took his new position. Repairing his relationship with Larcade might be a good place to start.

And now he had a to-do list.

He couldn't help smiling as he realised that the moment of madness from which his father's letter had saved him had well and truly passed.

"Something amuses you?" Erza inquired, curious.

"I was just thinking of something a friend once told me… you have to live for your friends, not die for them."

Her eyebrows raised minutely. "Good advice."

"It is," he agreed. "Thank you, Erza."

She shrugged. "I didn't do most of it. Though, I am glad that the other Erzas you met did. Whatever you decide to do about Natsu, come back and visit us anyway. You will always be welcome in our guild."

"I will. Thank you."

They stood somewhat formally, and she offered him her hand to shake; one Guild Master to another. He remembered her fingers trembling, unable to lift a bottle of water to her lips, let alone execute her explosive will to end his life – and he marvelled now at the strength of her grip. This was Erza as she always should have been, and always would be, now: fierce in the defence of her friends, merciless towards her enemies, and willing to help all those who came to her with a wisdom and maturity that belied her years.

Everything a Guild Master should be. Everything Zeref had wanted _him_ to be. If he was looking for guidance as he set foot upon the path of leadership, he thought he could do a lot worse than remembering everything Erza had done for him.

As she left to discuss the latest plan with Invel and Makarov, he found himself wondering if he should talk to Irene after all. They had never been particularly close, but she was the only one amongst the Twelve who still acted as though Erza being her daughter was a total secret, and the way that she had agreed to fight with them against Acnologia but wanted nothing to do with Fairy Tail beyond that wasn't exactly subtle.

Maybe he would offer to listen, and see if she was willing to talk about it. She might be, if he gave up his secret first. He had a better chance than anyone of understanding how she felt – and thus he thought he had a duty to make that offer, for Erza's sake and for her own.

Ah. It seemed his to-do list was growing by the minute.

Zeref had been absolutely right. His entire life had revolved around his father: helping to build his empire, and fulfilling his will; trapped between convincing himself that he was satisfied to just be by his side and knowing deep inside that it would never be enough. He didn't regret a minute of that, but at the same time, his life hadn't ended when Zeref's had. Rather, it had begun. The time had come to start doing the things _he_ wanted to do.

Acnologia was only the start. There was Larcade and Natsu to think about – and a great deal of research into demonic magic to begin. Going through Zeref's research journals would be painful, but more than a small part of him was eager for the chance to pick up where his father had left off, in the same way that they had studied magic together when he was young. He would see if Irene was willing to open up to him, and if so, find out if she would entertain the notion of reconciliation with Erza.

He wanted to establish a long-term relationship with Fairy Tail – and a long-lasting peace between their nations. He wanted to form closer bonds with those around him; those upon whom he knew he would be relying a great deal over the upcoming months. It shouldn't have taken losing every last one of them for him to realise that those friendships were every bit as important to him as his relationship with his father. He wanted, somehow, to ease his nation into the transition… to introduce them to the idea of the empire without Zeref… to live up to his father's legacy, and lead Alvarez towards the best future he could.

He wasn't sure if he would ever be ready, but it was with a strange kind of relief that he realised the sheer number of items on his to-do list wasn't going to let him put it off any longer.

The immortality that had plagued his father all his life couldn't be inherited, but as Zeref had promised him, great magic was a powerful force for life, and his was greater than anyone's. There remained more years ahead than he could possibly have imagined in a world without his father – and he was determined to put every last one of them to good use.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** _And we're done. When I started this story, I wanted to write something that resolved August's storyline without straying too far from the parameters of the original (i.e. no contrived means of breaking Zeref's curse and letting everyone live happily ever after). I had two main goals - getting August to a point where he would make the decision to tell Zeref the truth, and then pushing him further, until he could and would want to keep living without him._

 _In canon, and at the start of this story, his entire character revolved around Zeref. To grow, he needed to become independent from him, but realistically, he had no desire to do so. Therefore, the fact that Zeref was going to die was never in question. August's development could never be complete - he could never become his own person - as long as his father lived, bittersweet though it might be. I hope I've done their relationship justice._

 _ _Thank you for reading through to the end. It's going to be a while before I next upload anything - a combination of committing to a stupidly long story idea and then starting a full-time job - but I'll be back eventually! ~CS__


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